that tall man with the mustachios and
the short trousers, walking with that boy of his. I dare say they
are going to dine in Covent Garden, and going to the play. How-dy-do,
Nunky?"--and so the worthy pair went up to the card-room, where they
sate at piquet until the hour of sunset and dinner arrived.

CHAPTER VII. In which Mr. Clive's School-days are over

Our good Colonel had luckily to look forward to a more pleasant meeting
with his son, than that unfortunate interview with his other near
relatives. He dismissed his cab at Ludgate Hill, and walked thence
by the dismal precincts of Newgate, and across the muddy pavement of
Smithfield, on his way back to the old school where his son was, a
way which he had trodden many a time in his own early days. There was
Cistercian Street, and the Red Cow of his youth: there was the quaint
old Grey Friars Square, with its blackened trees and garden, surrounded
by ancient houses of the build of the last century, now slumbering like
pensioners in the sunshine.

Under the great archway of the hospital he could look at the old Gothic
building: and a black-gowned pensioner or two crawling over the quiet
square, or passing from one dark arch to another. The boarding-houses
of the school were situated in the square, hard by the more ancient
buildings of the hospital. A great noise of shouting, crying, clapping
forms and cupboards, treble voices, bass voices, poured out of the
schoolboys' windows: their life, bustle, and gaiety contrasted strangely
with the quiet of those old men creeping along in their black gowns
under the ancient arches yonder, whose struggle of life was over, whose
hope and noise and bustle had sunk into that grey calm. There was Thomas
Newcome arrived at the middle of life, standing between the shouting
boys and the tottering seniors, and in a situation to moralise upon
both, had not his son Clive, who has espied him from within Mr.
Hopkinson's, or let us say at once Hopkey's house, come jumping down the
steps to greet his sire. Clive was dressed in his very best; not one of
those four hundred young gentlemen had a better figure, a better tailor,
or a neater boot. Schoolfellows, grinning through the bars, envied him
as he walked away; senior boys made remarks on Colonel Newcome's loose
clothes and long mustachios, his brown hands and unbrushed hat. The
Colonel was smoking a cheroot as he walked; and the gigantic Smith,
the cock of the school, who happened t