The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-21
From "Pendennis," by William Mal
 peace Thackeray.

peace Ihackeray.
 T HE London season was now (0 blooming in it's full vigor. and
 the fashionable newspapers abounded with information regarding the grand banauets, routes and balls which were enlivening the polite world. Our gracious sovereign was holding levees and drawing rooms at St. James the bow windows of the clubs were crowded with the heads of respectable red faced news paper reading gentlemen; along the Ser pentine trailed thousands of carriages; squadrons of dandy horsemen tranpled over Rotten Row; everybody was in town in a word; and of course Mai. Arthur Pendennis. who was somebody, was not absent
 With his head tied up in a smart ban dana handerl<erchief and his meager car cass enveloped in a brilliant Turkish dressing gown, the worthy gentleman sat on a certain morning by his fireside, let ting his feet gently simmer in bath, whilst he took his early cup of tea, and perused his Morning Post. He could not have faced the day without his two hours toilet, without his early cup of tea. with out his Morning Post. l suppose nobody in the world except Morgan, not even Morgan's master himself, knew how feeble and ancient the major was grow ing, and what numberless little comforts he required
 If men sheer, as our habit is at the artiflces of an old beauty, at her paint. i,, t,I and to us unknown stratagems, with which she Is said to remedy the ravages of time and reconstruct the charms whereof years have bereft her; the ladies, it is to be presumed, are not on their side altogether ignorant that men are vain as well as they, and that the toilets of old bucks are to the full as elaborate as their own. How is it that old Flushing ton keeps that constant little rose tint on his cheeks; and where does old Blondel get the preparation which makes his sil- yer hair pass for gold? Have you ever seen Lord Hotspur get off hfs horse when he thinks nobody is looking? Taken out of his stirrups his shiny boots can hardly totter up the steps of Hotspur house. He is dashing young nopleman still as you see the back of him in Rotten Row; when you behold him on foot, what an old, old fellow Did you ever form to yourself any idea of Dick Lacy GDick has been Dick these 60 years) in natural state and without his stays? All these men are objects whom the observer of human life and manners may contemplate with as much profit as the most elderly Belgra vian Venus or inveterate Mayfair JezebeI. An old reprobate daddy longlegs who has never said his prayers (except perhaps in pubic) these 30 years; an old buck who still clings to many of the habits of youth as his feeble grasp of health can hold by, who has given up the bottle but sits with young fellows over it and tells naughty stories upon toast and water who has given up beauty, but still talks about it wickedly as the youngest roue in company-such an old fellow, I say, if any person in Pimlico or St. James were to order the beadles to bring him into the middle aisle and there set him in an armchair and make a text of him and proach about him to the congregation, once in his life, and might be surprised to find that some good thoughts came out of him. But we are wandering from our text, the honest major who sits all this Morgan takes them out of that place of