But he was at work upon a prize-poem, he said, and could not compose without his cigar, and quoted the late lamented it Lord Byron's lines in favour of the custom of smoking.

As he was smoking to such good purpose, his mother could not of course refuse permission: in fact, the good soul coming into the room one day in the midst of Pen's labours (he was consulting a novel which had recently appeared, for the cultivation of the light literature of his own country as well as of foreign nations became every student)--Helen, we say, coming into the room and finding Pen on the sofa at this work, rather than disturb him went for a light-box and his cigar-case to his bedroom which was adjacent, and actually put the cigar into his mouth and lighted the match at which he kindled it.

Pen laughed, and kissed his mother's hand as it hung fondly over the back of the sofa.

"Dear old mother," he said, "if I were to tell you to burn the house down, I think you would do it." And it is very likely that Mr.Pen was right, and that the foolish woman would have done almost as much for him as he said.
Besides the works of English "light literature" which this diligent student devoured, he brought down boxes of the light literature of the neighbouring country of France: into the leaves of which when Helen dipped, she read such things as caused her to open her eyes with wonder.
But Pen showed her that it was not he who made the books, though it was absolutely necessary that he should keep up his French by an acquaintance with the most celebrated writers of the day, and that it was as clearly his duty to read the eminent Paul de Kock, as to study Swift or Moliere.

And Mrs.Pendennis yielded with a sigh of perplexity.
But Miss Laura was warned off the books, both by his anxious mother, and that rigid moralist Mr.Arthur Pendennis himself, who, however he might be called upon to study every branch of literature in order to form his mind and to perfect his style, would by no means prescribe such a course of reading to a young lady whose business in life was very different.
In the course of this long vacation Mr.Pen drank up the bin of claret which his father had laid in, and of which we have heard the son remark that there was not a headache in a hogshead; and this wine being exhausted, he wrote for a further supply to "his wine merchants," Messrs.