Upon my word and honour,
as a gentleman and an executor to my brother's will too, he left little
more than five hundred a year behind him."
"And with aconomy, a handsome sum of money too, sir," the Captain
answered. "Faith, I've known a man drink his clar't, and drive his
coach-and-four on five hundred a year and strict aconomy, in Ireland,
sir. We'll manage on it, sir--trust Jack Costigan for that."
"My dear Captain Costigan--I give you my word that my brother did not
leave a shilling to his son Arthur."
"Are ye joking with me, Meejor Pendennis?" cried Jack Costigan. "Are ye
thrifling with the feelings of a father and a gentleman?"
"I am telling you the honest truth," said Major Pendennis. "Every
shilling my brother had, he left to his widow: with a partial reversion,
it is true, to the boy. But she is a young woman, and may marry if he
offends her--or she may outlive him, for she comes of an uncommonly
long-lived family. And I ask you, as a gentleman and a man of the world,
what allowance can my sister, Mrs. Pendennis, make to her son out of five
hundred a year, which is all her fortune,--that shall enable him to
maintain himself and your daughter in the rank befitting such an
accomplished young lady?"
"Am I to understand, sir, that the young gentleman, your nephew, and whom
I have fosthered and cherished as the son of me bosom, is an imposther
who has been thrifling with the affections of me beloved child?"
exclaimed the General, with an outbreak of wrath.
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