Notwithstanding his mother's worship of him, Arthur Pendennis's
school-fellows at the Grey Friars School state that as a boy he was in no
way remarkable either as a dunce or as a scholar. He never read to
improve himself out of school-hours, but on the contrary devoured all the
novels, plays and poetry he could get hold of. He never was flogged, but
it was a wonder how he escaped the whippingpost. When he had money he
spent it royally in tarts for himself and his friends, and had been known
to disburse nine and sixpence out of ten shillings awarded to him in a
single day. When he had no funds he went on tick. When he could get no
credit he went without, and was almost as happy. He had been known to
take a thrashing for a crony without saying a word; but a blow ever so
slight from a friend would make him roar. To fighting he was averse from
his earliest youth, and indeed to physic, the Greek Grammar, or any other
exertion, and would engage in none of them, except at the last extremity.
He seldom if ever told lies, and never bullied little boys. Those masters
or seniors who were kind to him, he loved with boyish ardour. And though
the Doctor, when he did not know his Horace, or could not construe his
Greek play, said that that boy Pendennis was a disgrace to the school, a
candidate for ruin in this world, and perdition in the next; a profligate
who would most likely bring his venerable father to ruin and his mother
to a dishonoured grave, and the like--yet as the Doctor made use of these
compliments to most of the boys in the place, little Pen, at first uneasy
and terrified by these charges, became gradually accustomed to hear them;
and he has not, in fact, either murdered his parents or committed any act
worthy of transportation or hanging up to the present day.
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