My uncle, Major Pendennis, had for a while a seat in the chapel of this sweet and popular preacher, and professed, as a great number of persons of fashion did, a great admiration for him--an admiration which I shared in my early youth, but which has been modified by maturer judgment.
Mr.Honeyman told me, with an air of deep respect, that his young nephew's father, Colonel Thomas Newcome, C.B., was a most gallant and distinguished officer in the Bengal establishment of the Honourable East India Company;--and that his uncles, the Colonel's half-brothers, were the eminent bankers, heads of the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcome, Hobson Newcome, Esquire, Bryanstone Square, and Marblehead, Sussex, and Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome and Park Lane, "whom to name," says Mr.Honeyman, with the fluent eloquence with which he decorated the commonest circumstances of life, "is to designate two of the merchant princes of the wealthiest city the world has ever known; and one, if not two, of the leaders of that aristocracy which rallies round the throne of the most elegant and refined of European sovereigns." I promised Mr.
Honeyman to do what I could for the boy; and he proceeded to take leave of his little nephew in my presence in terms equally eloquent, pulling out a long and very slender green purse, from which he extracted the sum of two-and-sixpence, which he presented to the child, who received the money with rather a queer twinkle in his blue eyes.
After that day's school, I met my little protege in the neighbourhood of the pastrycook's, regaling himself with raspberry-tarts.

"You must not spend all that money, sir, which your uncle gave you," said I (having perhaps even at that early age a slightly satirical turn), "in tarts and ginger-beer." The urchin rubbed the raspberry-jam off his mouth, and said, "It don't matter, sir, for I've got lots more." "How much ?" says the Grand Inquisitor: for the formula of interrogation used to be, when a new boy came to the school, "What's your name?
Who's your father?
and how much money have you got ?" The little fellow pulled such a handful of sovereigns out of his pocket as might have made the tallest scholar feel a pang of envy.

"Uncle Hobson," says he, "gave me two; Aunt Hobson gave me one--no, Aunt Hobson gave me thirty shillings; Uncle Newcome gave me three pound; and Aunt Anne gave me one pound five; and Aunt Honeyman sent me ten shillings in a letter.

And Ethel wanted to give me a pound, only I wouldn't have it, you know; because Ethel's younger than me, and I have plenty." "And who is Ethel ?" asks the senior boy, smiling at the artless youth's confessions.
"Ethel is my cousin," replies little Newcome; "Aunt Anne's daughter.
There's Ethel and Alice, and Aunt Anne wanted the baby to be called Boadicea, only uncle wouldn't; and there's Barnes and Egbert and little Alfred; only he don't count, he's quite a baby you know.

Egbert and me was at school at Timpany's; he's going to Eton next half.