John James had opened the door hastening to welcome a friend and patron, the sight of whom always gladdened the youth’s eyes; no other than Clive Newcome — in young Ridley’s opinion, the most splendid, fortunate, beautiful, high-born, and gifted youth this island contained. What generous boy in his time has not worshipped somebody? Before the female enslaver makes her appearance, every lad has a friend of friends, a crony of cronies, to whom he writes immense letters in vacation, whom he cherishes in his heart of hearts; whose sister he proposes to marry in after life; whose purse he shares; for whom he will take a thrashing if need be: who is his hero. Clive was John James’s youthful divinity: when he wanted to draw Thaddeus of Warsaw, a Prince, Ivanhoe, or some one splendid and egregious, it was Clive he took for a model. His heart leapt when he saw the young fellow. He would walk cheerfully to Grey Friars, with a letter or message for Clive, on the chance of seeing him, and getting a kind word from him, or a shake of the hand. An ex-butler of Lord Todmorden was a pensioner in the Grey Friars Hospital (it has been said that at that ancient establishment is a college for old men as well as for boys), and this old man would come sometimes to his successor’s Sunday dinner, and grumble from the hour of that meal until nine o’clock, when he was forced to depart, so as to be within Grey Friars’ gates before ten; grumble about his dinner — grumble about his beer — grumble about the number of chapels he had to attend, about the gown he wore, about the master’s treatment of him, about the want of plums in the pudding, as old men and schoolboys grumble. It was wonderful what a liking John James took to this odious, querulous, graceless, stupid, and snuffy old man, and how he would find pretexts for visiting him at his lodging in the old hospital. He actually took that journey that he might have a chance of seeing Clive. He sent Clive notes and packets of drawings; thanked him for books lent, asked advice about future reading — anything, so that he might have a sight of his pride, his patron, his paragon.
I am afraid Clive Newcome employed him to smuggle rum-shrub and cigars into the premises; giving him appointments in the school precincts, where young Clive would come and stealthily receive the forbidden goods. The poor lad was known by the boys, and called Newcome’s Punch. He was all but hunchbacked; long and lean in the arm; sallow, with a great forehead, and waving black hair, and large melancholy eyes.
“What, is it you, J. J.?” cries Clive gaily, when his humble friend appears at the door. “Father, this is my friend Ridley. This is the fellow what can draw.”
“I know who I will back against any young man of his size at that,” says the Colonel, looking at Clive fondly. He considered there was not such a genius in the world; and had already thought of having some of Clive’s drawings published by M’Lean of the Haymarket.
“This is my father just come from India — and Mr. Pendennis, an old Grey Friars’ man. Is my uncle at home?” Both these gentlemen bestow rather patronising nods of the head on the lad introduced to them as J. J. His exterior is but mean-looking. Colonel Newcome, one of the humblest-minded men alive, has yet his old-fashioned military notions; and speaks to a butler’s son as to a private soldier, kindly, but not familiarly.
“Mr Honeyman is at home, gentlemen,” the young lad says, humbly. “Shall I show you up to his room?” And we walk up the stairs after our guide. We find Mr. Honeyman deep in study on his sofa, with Pearson on the Creed before him. The novel has been whipped under the pillow. Clive found it there some short time afterwards, during his uncle’s temporary absence in his dressing-room. He has agreed to suspend his theological studies, and go out with his brother-inlaw to dine.
As Clive and his friends were at Honeyman’s door, and just as we were entering to see the divine seated in state before his folio, Clive whispers, “J. J., come along, old fellow, and show us some drawings. What are you doing?”
“I was doing some Arabian Nights,” says J. J., “up in my room; and hearing a knock which I thought was yours, I came down.”
“Show us the pictures. Let’s go up into your room,” cries Clive. “What — will you?” says the other. “It is but a very small place.”
“Never mind, come along,” says Clive; and the two lads disappear together, leaving the three grown gentlemen to discourse together, or rather two of us to listen to Honeyman, who expatiates upon the beauty of the weather, the difficulties of the clerical calling, the honour Colonel Newcome does him by a visit, etc., with his usual eloquence.
After a while Clive comes down without J. J., from the upper regions. He is greatly excited. “Oh, sir,” he says to his father, “you talk about my drawings — you should see J. J.‘s! By Jove, that fellow is a genius. They are beautiful, sir. You seem actually to read the Arabian Nights, you know, only in pictures. There is Scheherazade telling the stories, and — what do you call her? — Dinarzade and the Sultan sitting in bed and listening. Such a grim old cove! You see he has cut off ever so many of his wives’ heads. I can’t think where that chap gets his ideas from. I can beat him in drawing horses, I know, and dogs; but I can only draw what I see. Somehow he seems to see things we don’t, don’t you know? Oh, father, I’m determined I’d rather be a painter than anything.” And he falls to drawing horses and dogs at his uncle’s table, round which the elders are seated.
“I’ve settled it upstairs with J. J.,” says Clive, working away with his pen. “We shall take a studio together; perhaps we will go abroad together. Won’t that be fun, father?”
“My dear Clive,” remarks Mr. Honeyman, with bland dignity, “there are degrees in society which we must respect. You surely cannot think of being a professional artist. Such a profession is very well for your young protege; but for you ——”
“What for me?” cries Clive. “We are no such great folks that I know of; and if we were, I say a painter is as good as a lawyer, or a doctor, or even a soldier. In Dr. Johnston’s Life — which my father is always reading — I like to read about Sir Joshua Reynolds best: I think he is the best gentleman of all in the book. My! wouldn’t I like to paint a picture like Lord Heathfield in the National Gallery! Wouldn’t I just! I think I would sooner have done that, than have fought at Gibraltar. And those Three Graces — oh, aren’t they graceful! And that Cardinal Beaufort at Dulwich! — it frightens me so, I daren’t look at it. Wasn’t Reynolds a clipper, that’s all! and wasn’t Rubens a brick! He was an ambassador, and Knight of the Bath; so was Vandyck. And Titian, and Raphael, and Velasquez? — I’ll just trouble you to show me better gentlemen than them, Uncle Charles.”
“Far be it from me to say that the pictorial calling is not honourable,” says Uncle Charles; “but as the world goes there are other professions in greater repute; and I should have thought Colonel Newcome’s son ——”
“He shall follow his own bent,” said the Colonel; “as long as his calling is honest it becomes a gentleman; and if he were to take a fancy to play on the fiddle — actually on the fiddle — I shouldn’t object.”
“Such a rum chap there was upstairs!” Clive resumes, looking up from his scribbling. “He was walking up and down on the landing in a dressing-gown, with scarcely any other clothes on, holding a plate in one hand, and a pork-chop he was munching with the other. Like this” (and Clive draws a figure). “What do you think, sir? He was in the Cave of Harmony, he says, that night you flared up about Captain Costigan. He knew me at once; and he says, ‘Sir, your father acted like a gentleman, a Christian, and a man of honour. Maxima debetur puero reverentia. Give him my compliments. I don’t know his highly respectable name.’ His highly respectable name,” says Clive, cracking with laughter —“those were his very words. ‘And inform him that I am an orphan myself — in needy circumstances’— he said he was in needy circumstances; ‘and I heartily wish he’d adopt me.’”
The lad puffed out his face, made his voice as loud and as deep as he could; and from his imitation and the picture he had drawn, I knew at once that Fred Bayham was the man he mimicked.
“And does the Red Rover live here,” cried Mr. Pendennis, “and have we earthed him at last?”
“He sometimes comes here,” Mr. Honeyman said with a careless manner. “My landlord and landlady were butler and housekeeper to his father, Ba............