Let us have the facts out, and mend what is bad if we can.

This novel of _Pendennis_ is one of his loudest protests to this effect.
I will not attempt to tell the story of Pendennis, how his mother loved him, how he first came to be brought up together with Laura Bell, how he thrashed the other boys when he was a boy, and how he fell in love with Miss Fotheringay, nee Costigan, and was determined to marry her while he was still a hobbledehoy, how he went up to Boniface, that well-known college at Oxford, and there did no good, spending money which he had not got, and learning to gamble.

The English gentleman, as we know, never lies; but Pendennis is not quite truthful; when the college tutor, thinking that he hears the rattling of dice, makes his way into Pen's room, Pen and his two companions are found with three _Homers_ before them, and Pen asks the tutor with great gravity; "What was the present condition of the river Scamander, and whether it was navigable or no ?" He tells his mother that, during a certain vacation he must stay up and read, instead of coming home,--but, nevertheless, he goes up to London to amuse himself.

The reader is soon made to understand that, though Pen may be a fine gentleman, he is not trustworthy.

But he repents and comes home, and kisses his mother; only, alas! he will always be kissing somebody else also.
The story of the Amorys and the Claverings, and that wonderful French cook M.Alcide Mirobolant, forms one of those delightful digressions which Thackeray scatters through his novels rather than weaves into them.