alive, loved to have his friends around him; and it must be confessed
that the evening parties now occasionally given in Fitzroy Square were
of the oddest assemblage of people. The correct East India gentlemen
from Hanover Square: the artists, Clive's friends, gentlemen of all ages
with all sorts of beards, in every variety of costume. Now and again a
stray schoolfellow from Grey Friars, who stared, as well he might,
at the company in which he found himself. Sometimes a few ladies were
brought to these entertainments. The immense politeness of the good host
compensated some of them for the strangeness of his company. They had
never seen such odd-looking hairy men as those young artists, nor such
wonderful women as Colonel Newcome assembled together. He was good to
all old maids and poor widows. Retired captains with large families of
daughters found in him their best friend. He sent carriages to fetch
them and bring them back from the suburbs where they dwelt. Gandish,
Mrs. Gandish, and the four Miss Gandishes in scarlet robes, were
constant attendants at the Colonel's soirees.

"I delight, sir, in the 'ospitality of my distinguished military
friend," Mr. Gandish would say. "The harmy has always been my
passion.--I served in the Soho Volunteers three years myself, till the
conclusion of the war, sir, till the conclusion of the war."

It was a great sight to see Mr. Frederick Bayham engaged in the waltz or
the quadrille with some of the elderly houris at the Colonel's parties.
F. B., like a good-natured F. B. as he was, always chose the plainest
women as partners, and entertained them with profound compliments and
sumptuous conversation. The Colonel likewise danced quadrilles with the
utmost gravity. Waltzing had been invented long since his time: but he
practised quadrilles when they first came in, about 1817, in Calcutta.
To see him leading up a little old maid, and bowing to her when the
dance was ended, and performing cavalier seul with stately simplicity,
was a sight indeed to remember. If Clive Newcome had not such a fine
sense of humour, he would have blushed for his father's simplicity.--As
it was, the elder's guileless goodness and childlike trustfulness
endeared him immensely to his son. "Look at the old boy, Pendennis," he
would say, "look at him leading up that old Miss Tidswell to the piano.
Doesn't he do it like an old duke? I lay a wager she thinks she is going
to be my mother-in-law; all the women are i