[The Newcomes by William Makepeace Thackeray]@TWC D-Link book
The Newcomes

CHAPTER XIV
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But providentially, you see, it was war-time, and very soon after I had the good luck to show that I was not a poule mouillee, as the French call it; and the man who insulted me, and whom I forgave, became my fastest friend, and died by my side--it was poor Jack Cutler--at Argaum.

We must go and ask Barnes Newcome's pardon, sir, and forgive other people's trespasses, my boy, if we hope forgiveness of our own." His voice sank down as he spoke, and he bowed his honest head reverently.

I have heard his son tell the simple story years afterwards, with tears in his eyes.
Piccadilly was hardly yet awake the next morning, and the sparkling dews and the poor homeless vagabonds still had possession of the grass of Hyde Park, as the pair walked up to Sir Brian Newcome's house, where the shutters were just opening to let in the day.

The housemaid, who was scrubbing the steps of the house, and washing its trim feet in a manner which became such a polite mansion's morning toilet, knew Master Clive, and smiled at him from under her blousy curl-papers, admitting the two gentlemen into Sir Brian's dining-room, where they proposed to wait until Mr.Barnes should appear.

There they sate for an hour looking at Lawrence's picture of Lady Anne, leaning over a harp, attired in white muslin; at Harlowe's portrait of Mrs.Newcome, with her two sons simpering at her knees, painted at a time when the Newcome Brothers were not the bald-headed, red-whiskered British merchants with whom the reader has made acquaintance, but chubby children with hair flowing down their backs, and quaint little swallow-tailed jackets and nankeen trousers.


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