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Thackeray's Works: The adventures of Philip, vol. III. Catherine: a story
Thackeray's Works The adventures of Philip vol III Catherine a story Author:William Makepeace Thackeray Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. NEC PLENA CBUOEI8 HIEUDO. The reading of this precious letter filled Philip's friend with an inward indignation which it was very hard to contro... more »l or disguise. It is no pleasant task to tell a gentleman that his father is a rogue. Old Fir- min would have been hanged a few years earlier, for practices like these. As you talk with a very great scoundrel, or with a madman, has not the respected reader sometimes reflected, with a grim self- humiliation, how the fellow is of our own kind; and homo est ? Let us, dearly beloved, who are outside — I mean outside the hulks or the asylum — be thankful that we have to pay a barber for snipping our hair, and are intrusted with the choice of the cut of our own jerkins. As poor Philip read his father's letter, my thought was: " And I can remember the soft white hand of that scoundrel, which has just been forging his own son's name, putting sovereigns into my own palm, when I was a schoolboy." I always liked that man: — but the story is not de me — it regards Philip. " You won't pay this bill ? " Philip's friend indignantly said, then. " What can I do ? " says poor Phil, shaking a sad head. "You are not worth five hundred pounds in the world," remarks the friend. " Who ever said I was ? I am worth this bill: or my credit is," answers the victim. " If you pay this, he will draw more." " I dare say he will: " that Firmin admits. " And he will continue to draw as long as there is a drop of blood to be had out of you." " Yes," owns poor Philip, putting a finger to his lip. He thought I might be about to speak. His artless wife and mine were conversing at that moment upon the respective merits of some sweet chintzes which they had seen at Schoolbred's in Tottenham Court Road, and which were so cheap and pleasan...« less