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." Pen blushed again.

She had written, but not in verse, the young lover owned, and he gave his breast-pocket the benefit of a squeeze with his left arm, which the Major remarked, according to his wont.
"You have got the letters there, I see," said the old campaigner, nodding at Pen and pointing to his own chest (which was manfully wadded with cotton by Mr.Stultz).

"You know you have.

I would give twopence to see 'em." "Why," said Pen, twiddling the stalks of the strawberries, "I--I," but this sentence never finished; for Pen's face was so comical and embarrassed, as the Major watched it, that the elder could contain his gravity no longer, and burst into a fit of laughter, in which chorus Pen himself was obliged to join after a minute: when he broke out fairly into a guffaw.
It sent them with great good-humour into Mrs.Pendennis's drawing-room.
She was pleased to hear them laughing in the hall as they crossed it.
"You sly rascal!" said the Major, putting his arm gaily on Pen's shoulder, and giving a playful push at the boy's breast-pocket.