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Thackeray, William Makepeace, 1811-1863

"The History of Pendennis"

However, promise us on our
side, my boy, what I set out by entreating you to grant,--that there
shall be nothing clandestine, that you will pursue your studies, that you
will only visit your interesting friend at proper intervals. Do you
write to her much?"
Pen blushed and said, "Why, yes, he had written."
"I suppose verses, eh! as well as prose? I was a dab at verses myself. I
recollect when I first joined, I used to write verses for the fellows in
the regiment; and did some pretty things in that way. I was talking to my
old friend General Hobbler about some lines I dashed off for him in the
year 1806, when we were at the Cape, and, Gad, he remembered every line
of them still; for he'd used 'em so often, the old rogue, and had
actually tried 'em on Mrs. Hobbler, sir--who brought him sixty thousand
pounds. I suppose you've tried verses, eh, Pen?"
Pen blushed again, and said, "Why, yes, he had written verses."
"And does the fair one respond in poetry or prose?" asked the Major,
eyeing his nephew with the queerest expression, as much as to say, "O
Moses and Green Spectacles! what a fool the boy is.


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