The silence of course departed at Mr.
Arthur's noise, but the gloom remained and deepened, as the darkness
does in a vault if you light up a single taper in it. Pendennis tried
to describe, in a jocular manner, the transactions of the night
previous, and attempted to give an imitation of Costigan vainly
expostulating with the check-taker at Vauxhall. It was not a good
imitation. What stranger can imitate that perfection? Nobody laughed.
Mrs. Bolton did not in the least understand what part Mr. Pendennis
was performing, and whether it was the check-taker or the captain he
was taking off. Fanny wore an alarmed face, and tried a timid giggle;
old Mr. Bows looked as glum as when he fiddled in the orchestra, or
played a difficult piece upon the old piano at the Back-Kitchen.
Pen felt that his story was a failure; his voice sank and
dwindled away dismally at the end of it--flickered, and went out;
and it was all dark again. You could hear the ticket-porter, who lolls
about Shepherd's Inn, as he passed on the flags under the archway: the
clink of his boot-heels was noted by every body.
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