prompt:
Chapter: Georgy is Made a Gentleman

Georgy Osborne was now fairly established in his grandfather's mansion
in Russell Square, occupant of his father's room in the house and heir
apparent of all the splendours there.  The good looks, gallant bearing,
and gentlemanlike appearance of the boy won the grandsire's heart for
him.  Mr. Osborne was as proud of him as ever he had been of the elder
George.

The child had many more luxuries and indulgences than had been awarded
his father.  Osborne's commerce had prospered greatly of late years.
His wealth and importance in the City had very much increased.  He had
been glad enough in former days to put the elder George to a good
private school; and a commission in the army for his son had been a
source of no small pride to him; for little George and his future
prospects the old man looked much higher.  He would make a gentleman of
the little chap, was Mr. Osborne's constant saying regarding little
Georgy.  He saw him in his mind's eye, a collegian, a Parliament man, a
Baronet, perhaps.  The old man thought he would die contented if he
could see his grandson in a fair way to such honours.  He would have
none but a tip-top college man to educate him--none of your quacks and
pretenders--no, no.  A few years before, he used to be savage, and
inveigh against all parsons, scholars, and the like declaring that they
were a pack of humbugs, and quacks that weren't fit to get their living
but by grinding Latin and Greek, and a set of supercilious dogs that
pretended to look down upon British merchants and gentlemen, who could
buy up half a hundred of 'em.  He would mourn now, in a very solemn
manner, that his own education had been neglected, and repeatedly point
out, in pompous orations to Georgy, the necessity and excellence of
classical acquirements.

When they met at dinner the grandsire used to ask the lad what he had
been reading during the day, and was greatly interested at the report
the boy gave of his own studies, pretending to understand little George
when he spoke regarding them.  He made a hundred blunders and showed
his ignorance many a time.  It did not increase the respect which the
child had for his senior. A quick brain and a better education
elsewhere showed the boy very soon that his grandsire was a dullard,
and he began accordingly to command him and to look down upon him; for
his previous education, humble and contracted as it had been, had made
a much better gentleman of Georgy than any plans of his grandfather
could make him.  He had been brought up by a kind, weak, and tender
woman, who had no pride about anything but about him, and whose heart
was so pure and whose bearing was so meek and humble that she could not
but needs be a true lady.  She busied herself in gentle offices and
quiet duties; if she never said brilliant things, she never spoke or
thought unkind ones; guileless and artless, loving and pure, indeed how
could our poor little Amelia be other than a real gentlewoman!

Young Georgy lorded over this soft and yielding nature; and the
contrast of its simplicity and delicacy with the coarse pomposity of
the dull old man with whom he next came in contact made him lord over
the latter too.  If he had been a Prince Royal he could not have been
better brought up to think well of himself.

Whilst his mother was yearning after him at home, and I do believe
every hour of the day, and during most hours of the sad lonely nights,
thinking of him, this young gentleman had a number of pleasures and
consolations administered to him, which made him for his part bear the
separation from Amelia very easily.  Little boys who cry when they are
going to school cry because they are going to a very uncomfortable
place.  It is only a few who weep from sheer affection.  When you think
that the eyes of your childhood dried at the sight of a piece of
gingerbread, and that a plum cake was a compensation for the agony of
parting with your mamma and sisters, oh my friend and brother, you need
not be too confident of your own fine feelings.

Well, then, Master George Osborne had every comfort and luxury that a
wealthy and lavish old grandfather thought fit to provide.  The
coachman was instructed to purchase for him the handsomest pony which
could be bought for money, and on this George was taught to ride, first
at a riding-school, whence, after having performed satisfactorily
without stirrups, and over the leaping-bar, he was conducted through
the New Road to Regent's Park, and then to Hyde Park, where he rode in
state with Martin the coachman behind him. Old Osborne, who took
matters more easily in the City now, where he left his affairs to his
junior partners, would often ride out with Miss O.  in the same
fashionable direction. As little Georgy came cantering up with his
dandified air and his heels down, his grandfather would nudge the lad's
aunt and say, "Look, Miss O." And he would laugh, and his face would
grow red with pleasure, as he nodded out of the window to the boy, as
the groom saluted the carriage, and the footman saluted Master George.
Here too his aunt, Mrs. Frederick Bullock (whose chariot might daily be
seen in the Ring, with bullocks or emblazoned on the panels and
harness, and three pasty-faced little Bullocks, covered with cockades
and feathers, staring from the windows) Mrs. Frederick Bullock, I say,
flung glances of the bitterest hatred at the little upstart as he rode
by with his hand on his side and his hat on one ear, as proud as a lord.

Though he was scarcely eleven years of age, Master George wore straps
and the most beautiful little boots like a man.  He had gilt spurs, and
a gold-headed whip, and a fine pin in his handkerchief, and the neatest
little kid gloves which Lamb's Conduit Street could furnish. His mother
had given him a couple of neckcloths, and carefully hemmed and made
some little shirts for him; but when her Eli came to see the widow,
they were replaced by much finer linen. He had little jewelled buttons
in the lawn shirt fronts.  Her humble presents had been put aside--I
believe Miss Osborne had given them to the coachman's boy.  Amelia
tried to think she was pleased at the change.  Indeed, she was happy
and charmed to see the boy looking so beautiful.

She had had a little black profile of him done for a shilling, and this
was hung up by the side of another portrait over her bed.  One day the
boy came on his accustomed visit, galloping down the little street at
Brompton, and bringing, as usual, all the inhabitants to the windows to
admire his splendour, and with great eagerness and a look of triumph in
his face, he pulled a case out of his great-coat--it was a natty white
great-coat, with a cape and a velvet collar--pulled out a red morocco
case, which he gave her.

"I bought it with my own money, Mamma," he said. "I thought you'd like
it."

Amelia opened the case, and giving a little cry of delighted affection,
seized the boy and embraced him a hundred times.  It was a miniature of
himself, very prettily done (though not half handsome enough, we may be
sure, the widow thought).  His grandfather had wished to have a picture
of him by an artist whose works, exhibited in a shop-window, in
Southampton Row, had caught the old gentleman's eye; and George, who
had plenty of money, bethought him of asking the painter how much a
copy of the little portrait would cost, saying that he would pay for it
out of his own money and that he wanted to give it to his mother.  The
pleased painter executed it for a small price, and old Osborne himself,
when he heard of the incident, growled out his satisfaction and gave
the boy twice as many sovereigns as he paid for the miniature.

But what was the grandfather's pleasure compared to Amelia's ecstacy?
That proof of the boy's affection charmed her so that she thought no
child in the world was like hers for goodness.  For long weeks after,
the thought of his love made her happy.  She slept better with the
picture under her pillow, and how many many times did she kiss it and
weep and pray over it!  A small kindness from those she loved made that
timid heart grateful.  Since her parting with George she had had no
such joy and consolation.

At his new home Master George ruled like a lord; at dinner he invited
the ladies to drink wine with the utmost coolness, and took off his
champagne in a way which charmed his old grandfather.  "Look at him,"
the old man would say, nudging his neighbour with a delighted purple
face, "did you ever see such a chap? Lord, Lord! he'll be ordering a
dressing-case next, and razors to shave with; I'm blessed if he won't."

The antics of the lad did not, however, delight Mr. Osborne's friends
so much as they pleased the old gentleman.  It gave Mr. Justice Coffin
no pleasure to hear Georgy cut into the conversation and spoil his
stories. Colonel Fogey was not interested in seeing the little boy half
tipsy.  Mr. Sergeant Toffy's lady felt no particular gratitude, when,
with a twist of his elbow, he tilted a glass of port-wine over her
yellow satin and laughed at the disaster; nor was she better pleased,
although old Osborne was highly delighted, when Georgy "whopped" her
third boy (a young gentleman a year older than Georgy, and by chance
home for the holidays from Dr. Tickleus's at Ealing School) in Russell
Square. George's grandfather gave the boy a couple of sovereigns for
that feat and promised to reward him further for every boy above his
own size and age whom he whopped in a similar manner.  It is difficult
to say what good the old man saw in these combats; he had a vague
notion that quarrelling made boys hardy, and that tyranny was a useful
accomplishment for them to learn.  English youth have been so educated
time out of mind, and we have hundreds of thousands of apologists and
admirers of injustice, misery, and brutality, as perpetrated among
children.  Flushed with praise and victory over Master Toffy, George
wished naturally to pursue his conquests further, and one day as he was
strutting about in prodigiously dandified new clothes, near St.
Pancras, and a young baker's boy made sarcastic comments upon his
appearance, the youthful patrician pulled off his dandy jacket with
great spirit, and giving it in charge to the friend who accompanied him
(Master Todd, of Great Coram Street, Russell Square, son of the junior
partner of the house of Osborne and Co.), George tried to whop the
little baker.  But the chances of war were unfavourable this time, and
the little baker whopped Georgy, who came home with a rueful black eye
and all his fine shirt frill dabbled with the claret drawn from his own
little nose.  He told his grandfather that he had been in combat with a
giant, and frightened his poor mother at Brompton with long, and by no
means authentic, accounts of the battle.

This young Todd, of Coram Street, Russell Square, was Master George's
great friend and admirer.  They both had a taste for painting
theatrical characters; for hardbake and raspberry tarts; for sliding
and skating in the Regent's Park and the Serpentine, when the weather
permitted; for going to the play, whither they were often conducted, by
Mr. Osborne's orders, by Rowson, Master George's appointed
body-servant, with whom they sat in great comfort in the pit.

In the company of this gentleman they visited all the principal
theatres of the metropolis; knew the names of all the actors from Drury
Lane to Sadler's Wells; and performed, indeed, many of the plays to the
Todd family and their youthful friends, with West's famous characters,
on their pasteboard theatre.  Rowson, the footman, who was of a
generous disposition, would not unfrequently, when in cash, treat his
young master to oysters after the play, and to a glass of rum-shrub for
a night-cap. We may be pretty certain that Mr. Rowson profited in his
turn by his young master's liberality and gratitude for the pleasures
to which the footman inducted him.

A famous tailor from the West End of the town--Mr. Osborne would have
none of your City or Holborn bunglers, he said, for the boy (though a
City tailor was good enough for HIM)--was summoned to ornament little
George's person, and was told to spare no expense in so doing.  So, Mr.
Woolsey, of Conduit Street, gave a loose to his imagination and sent
the child home fancy trousers, fancy waistcoats, and fancy jackets
enough to furnish a school of little dandies.  Georgy had little white
waistcoats for evening parties, and little cut velvet waistcoats for
dinners, and a dear little darling shawl dressing-gown, for all the
world like a little man. He dressed for dinner every day, "like a
regular West End swell," as his grandfather remarked; one of the
domestics was affected to his special service, attended him at his
toilette, answered his bell, and brought him his letters always on a
silver tray.

Georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the arm-chair in the dining-room
and read the Morning Post, just like a grown-up man.  "How he DU dam
and swear," the servants would cry, delighted at his precocity.  Those
who remembered the Captain his father, declared Master George was his
Pa, every inch of him.  He made the house lively by his activity, his
imperiousness, his scolding, and his good-nature.

George's education was confided to a neighbouring scholar and private
pedagogue who "prepared young noblemen and gentlemen for the
Universities, the senate, and the learned professions:  whose system
did not embrace the degrading corporal severities still practised at
the ancient places of education, and in whose family the pupils would
find the elegances of refined society and the confidence and affection
of a home." It was in this way that the Reverend Lawrence Veal of Hart
Street, Bloomsbury, and domestic Chaplain to the Earl of Bareacres,
strove with Mrs. Veal his wife to entice pupils.

By thus advertising and pushing sedulously, the domestic Chaplain and
his Lady generally succeeded in having one or two scholars by them--who
paid a high figure and were thought to be in uncommonly comfortable
quarters.  There was a large West Indian, whom nobody came to see, with
a mahogany complexion, a woolly head, and an exceedingly dandyfied
appearance; there was another hulking boy of three-and-twenty whose
education had been neglected and whom Mr. and Mrs. Veal were to
introduce into the polite world; there were two sons of Colonel Bangles
of the East India Company's Service:  these four sat down to dinner at
Mrs. Veal's genteel board, when Georgy was introduced to her
establishment.

Georgy was, like some dozen other pupils, only a day boy; he arrived in
the morning under the guardianship of his friend Mr. Rowson, and if it
was fine, would ride away in the afternoon on his pony, followed by the
groom.  The wealth of his grandfather was reported in the school to be
prodigious.  The Rev. Mr. Veal used to compliment Georgy upon it
personally, warning him that he was destined for a high station; that
it became him to prepare, by sedulity and docility in youth, for the
lofty duties to which he would be called in mature age; that obedience
in the child was the best preparation for command in the man; and that
he therefore begged George would not bring toffee into the school and
ruin the health of the Masters Bangles, who had everything they wanted
at the elegant and abundant table of Mrs. Veal.

With respect to learning, "the Curriculum," as Mr. Veal loved to call
it, was of prodigious extent, and the young gentlemen in Hart Street
might learn a something of every known science.  The Rev. Mr. Veal had
an orrery, an electrifying machine, a turning lathe, a theatre (in the
wash-house), a chemical apparatus, and what he called a select library
of all the works of the best authors of ancient and modern times and
languages. He took the boys to the British Museum and descanted upon
the antiquities and the specimens of natural history there, so that
audiences would gather round him as he spoke, and all Bloomsbury highly
admired him as a prodigiously well-informed man.  And whenever he spoke
(which he did almost always), he took care to produce the very finest
and longest words of which the vocabulary gave him the use, rightly
judging that it was as cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorous
epithet, as to use a little stingy one.

Thus he would say to George in school, "I observed on my return home
from taking the indulgence of an evening's scientific conversation with
my excellent friend Doctor Bulders--a true archaeologian, gentlemen, a
true archaeologian--that the windows of your venerated grandfather's
almost princely mansion in Russell Square were illuminated as if for
the purposes of festivity.  Am I right in my conjecture that Mr.
Osborne entertained a society of chosen spirits round his sumptuous
board last night?"

Little Georgy, who had considerable humour, and used to mimic Mr. Veal
to his face with great spirit and dexterity, would reply that Mr. V.
was quite correct in his surmise.

"Then those friends who had the honour of partaking of Mr. Osborne's
hospitality, gentlemen, had no reason, I will lay any wager, to
complain of their repast.  I myself have been more than once so
favoured.  (By the way, Master Osborne, you came a little late this
morning, and have been a defaulter in this respect more than once.) I
myself, I say, gentlemen, humble as I am, have been found not unworthy
to share Mr. Osborne's elegant hospitality.  And though I have feasted
with the great and noble of the world--for I presume that I may call my
excellent friend and patron, the Right Honourable George Earl of
Bareacres, one of the number--yet I assure you that the board of the
British merchant was to the full as richly served, and his reception as
gratifying and noble.  Mr. Bluck, sir, we will resume, if you please,
that passage of Eutropis, which was interrupted by the late arrival of
Master Osborne."

To this great man George's education was for some time entrusted.
Amelia was bewildered by his phrases, but thought him a prodigy of
learning.  That poor widow made friends of Mrs. Veal, for reasons of
her own.  She liked to be in the house and see Georgy coming to school
there.  She liked to be asked to Mrs. Veal's conversazioni, which took
place once a month (as you were informed on pink cards, with AOHNH
[_Transcriber's Note: The name of the Greek goddess Athene; the "O"
represents a capital theta._] engraved on them), and where the professor
welcomed his pupils and their friends to weak tea and scientific
conversation. Poor little Amelia never missed one of these
entertainments and thought them delicious so long as she might have
Georgy sitting by her. And she would walk from Brompton in any weather,
and embrace Mrs. Veal with tearful gratitude for the delightful evening
she had passed, when, the company having retired and Georgy gone off
with Mr. Rowson, his attendant, poor Mrs. Osborne put on her cloaks and
her shawls preparatory to walking home.

As for the learning which Georgy imbibed under this valuable master of
a hundred sciences, to judge from the weekly reports which the lad took
home to his grandfather, his progress was remarkable.  The names of a
score or more of desirable branches of knowledge were printed in a
table, and the pupil's progress in each was marked by the professor.
In Greek Georgy was pronounced aristos, in Latin optimus, in French
tres bien, and so forth; and everybody had prizes for everything at the
end of the year.  Even Mr. Swartz, the wooly-headed young gentleman,
and half-brother to the Honourable Mrs. Mac Mull, and Mr. Bluck, the
neglected young pupil of three-and-twenty from the agricultural
district, and that idle young scapegrace of a Master Todd before
mentioned, received little eighteen-penny books, with "Athene" engraved
on them, and a pompous Latin inscription from the professor to his
young friends.

The family of this Master Todd were hangers-on of the house of Osborne.
The old gentleman had advanced Todd from being a clerk to be a junior
partner in his establishment.

Mr. Osborne was the godfather of young Master Todd (who in subsequent
life wrote Mr. Osborne Todd on his cards and became a man of decided
fashion), while Miss Osborne had accompanied Miss Maria Todd to the
font, and gave her protegee a prayer-book, a collection of tracts, a
volume of very low church poetry, or some such memento of her goodness
every year.  Miss O.  drove the Todds out in her carriage now and then;
when they were ill, her footman, in large plush smalls and waistcoat,
brought jellies and delicacies from Russell Square to Coram Street.
Coram Street trembled and looked up to Russell Square indeed, and Mrs.
Todd, who had a pretty hand at cutting out paper trimmings for haunches
of mutton, and could make flowers, ducks, &c., out of turnips and
carrots in a very creditable manner, would go to "the Square," as it
was called, and assist in the preparations incident to a great dinner,
without even so much as thinking of sitting down to the banquet.  If
any guest failed at the eleventh hour, Todd was asked to dine.  Mrs.
Todd and Maria came across in the evening, slipped in with a muffled
knock, and were in the drawing-room by the time Miss Osborne and the
ladies under her convoy reached that apartment--and ready to fire off
duets and sing until the gentlemen came up.  Poor Maria Todd; poor
young lady!  How she had to work and thrum at these duets and sonatas
in the Street, before they appeared in public in the Square!

Thus it seemed to be decreed by fate that Georgy was to domineer over
everybody with whom he came in contact, and that friends, relatives,
and domestics were all to bow the knee before the little fellow.  It
must be owned that he accommodated himself very willingly to this
arrangement.  Most people do so.  And Georgy liked to play the part of
master and perhaps had a natural aptitude for it.

In Russell Square everybody was afraid of Mr. Osborne, and Mr. Osborne
was afraid of Georgy.  The boy's dashing manners, and offhand rattle
about books and learning, his likeness to his father (dead unreconciled
in Brussels yonder) awed the old gentleman and gave the young boy the
mastery.  The old man would start at some hereditary feature or tone
unconsciously used by the little lad, and fancy that George's father
was again before him.  He tried by indulgence to the grandson to make
up for harshness to the elder George.  People were surprised at his
gentleness to the boy.  He growled and swore at Miss Osborne as usual,
and would smile when George came down late for breakfast.

Miss Osborne, George's aunt, was a faded old spinster, broken down by
more than forty years of dulness and coarse usage.  It was easy for a
lad of spirit to master her. And whenever George wanted anything from
her, from the jam-pots in her cupboards to the cracked and dry old
colours in her paint-box (the old paint-box which she had had when she
was a pupil of Mr. Smee and was still almost young and blooming),
Georgy took possession of the object of his desire, which obtained, he
took no further notice of his aunt.

For his friends and cronies, he had a pompous old schoolmaster, who
flattered him, and a toady, his senior, whom he could thrash.  It was
dear Mrs. Todd's delight to leave him with her youngest daughter, Rosa
Jemima, a darling child of eight years old.  The little pair looked so
well together, she would say (but not to the folks in "the Square," we
may be sure) "who knows what might happen? Don't they make a pretty
little couple?" the fond mother thought.

The broken-spirited, old, maternal grandfather was likewise subject to
the little tyrant.  He could not help respecting a lad who had such
fine clothes and rode with a groom behind him.  Georgy, on his side,
was in the constant habit of hearing coarse abuse and vulgar satire
levelled at John Sedley by his pitiless old enemy, Mr. Osborne.
Osborne used to call the other the old pauper, the old coal-man, the
old bankrupt, and by many other such names of brutal contumely.  How
was little George to respect a man so prostrate? A few months after he
was with his paternal grandfather, Mrs. Sedley died. There had been
little love between her and the child. He did not care to show much
grief.  He came down to visit his mother in a fine new suit of
mourning, and was very angry that he could not go to a play upon which
he had set his heart.

The illness of that old lady had been the occupation and perhaps the
safeguard of Amelia.  What do men know about women's martyrdoms? We
should go mad had we to endure the hundredth part of those daily pains
which are meekly borne by many women.  Ceaseless slavery meeting with
no reward; constant gentleness and kindness met by cruelty as constant;
love, labour, patience, watchfulness, without even so much as the
acknowledgement of a good word; all this, how many of them have to bear
in quiet, and appear abroad with cheerful faces as if they felt
nothing.  Tender slaves that they are, they must needs be hypocrites
and weak.

From her chair Amelia's mother had taken to her bed, which she had
never left, and from which Mrs. Osborne herself was never absent except
when she ran to see George.  The old lady grudged her even those rare
visits; she, who had been a kind, smiling, good-natured mother once, in
the days of her prosperity, but whom poverty and infirmities had broken
down.  Her illness or estrangement did not affect Amelia.  They rather
enabled her to support the other calamity under which she was
suffering, and from the thoughts of which she was kept by the ceaseless
calls of the invalid.  Amelia bore her harshness quite gently; smoothed
the uneasy pillow; was always ready with a soft answer to the watchful,
querulous voice; soothed the sufferer with words of hope, such as her
pious simple heart could best feel and utter, and closed the eyes that
had once looked so tenderly upon her.

Then all her time and tenderness were devoted to the consolation and
comfort of the bereaved old father, who was stunned by the blow which
had befallen him, and stood utterly alone in the world.  His wife, his
honour, his fortune, everything he loved best had fallen away from him.
There was only Amelia to stand by and support with her gentle arms the
tottering, heart-broken old man. We are not going to write the history:
it would be too dreary and stupid.  I can see Vanity Fair yawning over
it d'avance.

One day as the young gentlemen were assembled in the study at the Rev.
Mr. Veal's, and the domestic chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl
of Bareacres was spouting away as usual, a smart carriage drove up to
the door decorated with the statue of Athene, and two gentlemen stepped
out.  The young Masters Bangles rushed to the window with a vague
notion that their father might have arrived from Bombay.  The great
hulking scholar of three-and-twenty, who was crying secretly over a
passage of Eutropius, flattened his neglected nose against the panes
and looked at the drag, as the laquais de place sprang from the box and
let out the persons in the carriage.

"It's a fat one and a thin one," Mr. Bluck said as a thundering knock
came to the door.

Everybody was interested, from the domestic chaplain himself, who hoped
he saw the fathers of some future pupils, down to Master Georgy, glad
of any pretext for laying his book down.

The boy in the shabby livery with the faded copper buttons, who always
thrust himself into the tight coat to open the door, came into the
study and said, "Two gentlemen want to see Master Osborne." The
professor had had a trifling altercation in the morning with that young
gentleman, owing to a difference about the introduction of crackers in
school-time; but his face resumed its habitual expression of bland
courtesy as he said, "Master Osborne, I give you full permission to go
and see your carriage friends--to whom I beg you to convey the
respectful compliments of myself and Mrs. Veal."

Georgy went into the reception-room and saw two strangers, whom he
looked at with his head up, in his usual haughty manner.  One was fat,
with mustachios, and the other was lean and long, in a blue frock-coat,
with a brown face and a grizzled head.

"My God, how like he is!" said the long gentleman with a start. "Can
you guess who we are, George?"

The boy's face flushed up, as it did usually when he was moved, and his
eyes brightened.  "I don't know the other," he said, "but I should
think you must be Major Dobbin."

Indeed it was our old friend.  His voice trembled with pleasure as he
greeted the boy, and taking both the other's hands in his own, drew the
lad to him.

"Your mother has talked to you about me--has she?" he said.

"That she has," Georgy answered, "hundreds and hundreds of times."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: George Jr. is living is up at Mr. Osborne's, who has decided that money is no object when it comes to his grandson. Mr. Osborne's hopes and dreams are to turn George Jr. into a titled gentleman. George Jr. has clothes, a nice pony, his own servant, and a series of private tutors. As he learns from these tutors, he realizes how uneducated his grandfather actually is and starts to look down on him. He's already had good practice in learning to lord it over others from the way Amelia raised him. One day he buys a portrait of himself for his mother as a present. She is happy for weeks at this demonstration of affection. At home George Jr. acts like a little grownup. He has grownup clothing, sits at dinner at the adult table, drinks his champagne . Mr. Osborne thinks this is delightful, though his old-men friends aren't really into having little George Jr. around being obnoxious during dinner. Mr. Osborne also encourages George Jr. to fight other little boys, especially ones bigger and older than him. It's not really clear why, but it's probably a character-building exercise. George Jr.'s footman takes him and his friends to plays and out to dinner afterwards. Finally, George is old enough to go to school and is enrolled at Mr. Veal's academy. Mr. Veal caters to rich clients and, unlike most schools, does not use corporal punishment. He is pompous and snobbish and proud of the long words he uses. He is awed by Mr. Osborn's money and treats George Jr. accordingly. The reason Osborne is the way he is towards George Jr. is finally revealed, but it's not really all that shocking. George Jr. looks a lot like his father, and so for Mr. Osborne this is kind of a way to reconcile with the dead George. George Jr. starts to really look down on his other grandfather, Mr. Sedley. Mr. Osborne is constantly running Mr. Sedley down as a bankrupt and a swindler, and George Jr. can't help but start thinking this way about him too. Meanwhile, Mrs. Sedley dies. Amelia has been taking care of her in her illness, which has at least helped take her mind off George Jr. His wife's death makes Mr. Sedley even more broken down. One day, at Mr. Veal's school, there is a knock on the door and visitors are announced for Mr. Osborne. It's a tall, thin guy and a fat guy. Who could it be? You guessed it - Major Dobbin and Jos! George Jr. recognizes Dobbin from his mother's stories about him.


prompt:
Chapter: Eothen

It was one of the many causes for personal pride with which old Osborne
chose to recreate himself that Sedley, his ancient rival, enemy, and
benefactor, was in his last days so utterly defeated and humiliated as
to be forced to accept pecuniary obligations at the hands of the man
who had most injured and insulted him.  The successful man of the world
cursed the old pauper and relieved him from time to time.  As he
furnished George with money for his mother, he gave the boy to
understand by hints, delivered in his brutal, coarse way, that George's
maternal grandfather was but a wretched old bankrupt and dependant, and
that John Sedley might thank the man to whom he already owed ever so
much money for the aid which his generosity now chose to administer.
George carried the pompous supplies to his mother and the shattered old
widower whom it was now the main business of her life to tend and
comfort.  The little fellow patronized the feeble and disappointed old
man.

It may have shown a want of "proper pride" in Amelia that she chose to
accept these money benefits at the hands of her father's enemy. But
proper pride and this poor lady had never had much acquaintance
together. A disposition naturally simple and demanding protection; a
long course of poverty and humility, of daily privations, and hard
words, of kind offices and no returns, had been her lot ever since
womanhood almost, or since her luckless marriage with George Osborne.
You who see your betters bearing up under this shame every day, meekly
suffering under the slights of fortune, gentle and unpitied, poor, and
rather despised for their poverty, do you ever step down from your
prosperity and wash the feet of these poor wearied beggars? The very
thought of them is odious and low.  "There must be classes--there must
be rich and poor," Dives says, smacking his claret (it is well if he
even sends the broken meat out to Lazarus sitting under the window).
Very true; but think how mysterious and often unaccountable it is--that
lottery of life which gives to this man the purple and fine linen and
sends to the other rags for garments and dogs for comforters.

So I must own that, without much repining, on the contrary with
something akin to gratitude, Amelia took the crumbs that her father-in-law
let drop now and then, and with them fed her own parent.
Directly she understood it to be her duty, it was this young woman's
nature (ladies, she is but thirty still, and we choose to call her a
young woman even at that age) it was, I say, her nature to sacrifice
herself and to fling all that she had at the feet of the beloved
object.  During what long thankless nights had she worked out her
fingers for little Georgy whilst at home with her; what buffets,
scorns, privations, poverties had she endured for father and mother!
And in the midst of all these solitary resignations and unseen
sacrifices, she did not respect herself any more than the world
respected her, but I believe thought in her heart that she was a
poor-spirited, despicable little creature, whose luck in life was only
too good for her merits.  O you poor women!  O you poor secret martyrs
and victims, whose life is a torture, who are stretched on racks in
your bedrooms, and who lay your heads down on the block daily at the
drawing-room table; every man who watches your pains, or peers into
those dark places where the torture is administered to you, must pity
you--and--and thank God that he has a beard.  I recollect seeing, years
ago, at the prisons for idiots and madmen at Bicetre, near Paris, a
poor wretch bent down under the bondage of his imprisonment and his
personal infirmity, to whom one of our party gave a halfpenny worth of
snuff in a cornet or "screw" of paper.  The kindness was too much for
the poor epileptic creature. He cried in an anguish of delight and
gratitude:  if anybody gave you and me a thousand a year, or saved our
lives, we could not be so affected.  And so, if you properly tyrannize
over a woman, you will find a ha'p'orth of kindness act upon her and
bring tears into her eyes, as though you were an angel benefiting her.

Some such boons as these were the best which Fortune allotted to poor
little Amelia.  Her life, begun not unprosperously, had come down to
this--to a mean prison and a long, ignoble bondage.  Little George
visited her captivity sometimes and consoled it with feeble gleams of
encouragement.  Russell Square was the boundary of her prison:  she
might walk thither occasionally, but was always back to sleep in her
cell at night; to perform cheerless duties; to watch by thankless
sick-beds; to suffer the harassment and tyranny of querulous
disappointed old age.  How many thousands of people are there, women
for the most part, who are doomed to endure this long slavery?--who are
hospital nurses without wages--sisters of Charity, if you like, without
the romance and the sentiment of sacrifice--who strive, fast, watch,
and suffer, unpitied, and fade away ignobly and unknown.

The hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions the destinies of mankind
is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, good, and wise,
and to set up the selfish, the foolish, or the wicked. Oh, be humble,
my brother, in your prosperity!  Be gentle with those who are less
lucky, if not more deserving.  Think, what right have you to be
scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may
be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity
is very likely a satire.

They buried Amelia's mother in the churchyard at Brompton, upon just
such a rainy, dark day as Amelia recollected when first she had been
there to marry George. Her little boy sat by her side in pompous new
sables. She remembered the old pew-woman and clerk.  Her thoughts were
away in other times as the parson read. But that she held George's hand
in her own, perhaps she would have liked to change places with....
Then, as usual, she felt ashamed of her selfish thoughts and prayed
inwardly to be strengthened to do her duty.

So she determined with all her might and strength to try and make her
old father happy.  She slaved, toiled, patched, and mended, sang and
played backgammon, read out the newspaper, cooked dishes for old
Sedley, walked him out sedulously into Kensington Gardens or the
Brompton Lanes, listened to his stories with untiring smiles and
affectionate hypocrisy, or sat musing by his side and communing with
her own thoughts and reminiscences, as the old man, feeble and
querulous, sunned himself on the garden benches and prattled about his
wrongs or his sorrows.  What sad, unsatisfactory thoughts those of the
widow were!  The children running up and down the slopes and broad
paths in the gardens reminded her of George, who was taken from her;
the first George was taken from her; her selfish, guilty love, in both
instances, had been rebuked and bitterly chastised. She strove to think
it was right that she should be so punished. She was such a miserable
wicked sinner.  She was quite alone in the world.

I know that the account of this kind of solitary imprisonment is
insufferably tedious, unless there is some cheerful or humorous
incident to enliven it--a tender gaoler, for instance, or a waggish
commandant of the fortress, or a mouse to come out and play about
Latude's beard and whiskers, or a subterranean passage under the
castle, dug by Trenck with his nails and a toothpick:  the historian
has no such enlivening incident to relate in the narrative of Amelia's
captivity.  Fancy her, if you please, during this period, very sad, but
always ready to smile when spoken to; in a very mean, poor, not to say
vulgar position of life; singing songs, making puddings, playing cards,
mending stockings, for her old father's benefit.  So, never mind,
whether she be a heroine or no; or you and I, however old, scolding,
and bankrupt--may we have in our last days a kind soft shoulder on
which to lean and a gentle hand to soothe our gouty old pillows.

Old Sedley grew very fond of his daughter after his wife's death, and
Amelia had her consolation in doing her duty by the old man.

But we are not going to leave these two people long in such a low and
ungenteel station of life.  Better days, as far as worldly prosperity
went, were in store for both. Perhaps the ingenious reader has guessed
who was the stout gentleman who called upon Georgy at his school in
company with our old friend Major Dobbin. It was another old
acquaintance returned to England, and at a time when his presence was
likely to be of great comfort to his relatives there.

Major Dobbin having easily succeeded in getting leave from his
good-natured commandant to proceed to Madras, and thence probably to
Europe, on urgent private affairs, never ceased travelling night and day
until he reached his journey's end, and had directed his march with such
celerity that he arrived at Madras in a high fever.  His servants who
accompanied him brought him to the house of the friend with whom he had
resolved to stay until his departure for Europe in a state of delirium;
and it was thought for many, many days that he would never travel
farther than the burying-ground of the church of St.  George's, where
the troops should fire a salvo over his grave, and where many a gallant
officer lies far away from his home.

Here, as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, the people who
watched him might have heard him raving about Amelia.  The idea that he
should never see her again depressed him in his lucid hours.  He
thought his last day was come, and he made his solemn preparations for
departure, setting his affairs in this world in order and leaving the
little property of which he was possessed to those whom he most desired
to benefit.  The friend in whose house he was located witnessed his
testament.  He desired to be buried with a little brown hair-chain
which he wore round his neck and which, if the truth must be known, he
had got from Amelia's maid at Brussels, when the young widow's hair was
cut off, during the fever which prostrated her after the death of
George Osborne on the plateau at Mount St.  John.

He recovered, rallied, relapsed again, having undergone such a process
of blood-letting and calomel as showed the strength of his original
constitution.  He was almost a skeleton when they put him on board the
Ramchunder East Indiaman, Captain Bragg, from Calcutta, touching at
Madras, and so weak and prostrate that his friend who had tended him
through his illness prophesied that the honest Major would never
survive the voyage, and that he would pass some morning, shrouded in
flag and hammock, over the ship's side, and carrying down to the sea
with him the relic that he wore at his heart.  But whether it was the
sea air, or the hope which sprung up in him afresh, from the day that
the ship spread her canvas and stood out of the roads towards home, our
friend began to amend, and he was quite well (though as gaunt as a
greyhound) before they reached the Cape.  "Kirk will be disappointed of
his majority this time," he said with a smile; "he will expect to find
himself gazetted by the time the regiment reaches home." For it must be
premised that while the Major was lying ill at Madras, having made such
prodigious haste to go thither, the gallant --th, which had passed many
years abroad, which after its return from the West Indies had been
baulked of its stay at home by the Waterloo campaign, and had been
ordered from Flanders to India, had received orders home; and the Major
might have accompanied his comrades, had he chosen to wait for their
arrival at Madras.

Perhaps he was not inclined to put himself in his exhausted state again
under the guardianship of Glorvina. "I think Miss O'Dowd would have
done for me," he said laughingly to a fellow-passenger, "if we had had
her on board, and when she had sunk me, she would have fallen upon you,
depend upon it, and carried you in as a prize to Southampton, Jos, my
boy."

For indeed it was no other than our stout friend who was also a
passenger on board the Ramchunder.  He had passed ten years in Bengal.
Constant dinners, tiffins, pale ale and claret, the prodigious labour
of cutcherry, and the refreshment of brandy-pawnee which he was forced
to take there, had their effect upon Waterloo Sedley. A voyage to
Europe was pronounced necessary for him--and having served his full
time in India and had fine appointments which had enabled him to lay by
a considerable sum of money, he was free to come home and stay with a
good pension, or to return and resume that rank in the service to which
his seniority and his vast talents entitled him.

He was rather thinner than when we last saw him, but had gained in
majesty and solemnity of demeanour. He had resumed the mustachios to
which his services at Waterloo entitled him, and swaggered about on
deck in a magnificent velvet cap with a gold band and a profuse
ornamentation of pins and jewellery about his person. He took breakfast
in his cabin and dressed as solemnly to appear on the quarter-deck as
if he were going to turn out for Bond Street, or the Course at
Calcutta.  He brought a native servant with him, who was his valet and
pipe-bearer and who wore the Sedley crest in silver on his turban.
That oriental menial had a wretched life under the tyranny of Jos
Sedley.  Jos was as vain of his person as a woman, and took as long a
time at his toilette as any fading beauty.  The youngsters among the
passengers, Young Chaffers of the 150th, and poor little Ricketts,
coming home after his third fever, used to draw out Sedley at the
cuddy-table and make him tell prodigious stories about himself and his
exploits against tigers and Napoleon. He was great when he visited the
Emperor's tomb at Longwood, when to these gentlemen and the young
officers of the ship, Major Dobbin not being by, he described the whole
battle of Waterloo and all but announced that Napoleon never would have
gone to Saint Helena at all but for him, Jos Sedley.

After leaving St.  Helena he became very generous, disposing of a great
quantity of ship stores, claret, preserved meats, and great casks
packed with soda-water, brought out for his private delectation.  There
were no ladies on board; the Major gave the pas of precedency to the
civilian, so that he was the first dignitary at table, and treated by
Captain Bragg and the officers of the Ramchunder with the respect which
his rank warranted.  He disappeared rather in a panic during a
two-days' gale, in which he had the portholes of his cabin battened
down, and remained in his cot reading the Washerwoman of Finchley
Common, left on board the Ramchunder by the Right Honourable the Lady
Emily Hornblower, wife of the Rev. Silas Hornblower, when on their
passage out to the Cape, where the Reverend gentleman was a missionary;
but, for common reading, he had brought a stock of novels and plays
which he lent to the rest of the ship, and rendered himself agreeable
to all by his kindness and condescension.

Many and many a night as the ship was cutting through the roaring dark
sea, the moon and stars shining overhead and the bell singing out the
watch, Mr. Sedley and the Major would sit on the quarter-deck of the
vessel talking about home, as the Major smoked his cheroot and the
civilian puffed at the hookah which his servant prepared for him.

In these conversations it was wonderful with what perseverance and
ingenuity Major Dobbin would manage to bring the talk round to the
subject of Amelia and her little boy.  Jos, a little testy about his
father's misfortunes and unceremonious applications to him, was soothed
down by the Major, who pointed out the elder's ill fortunes and old
age.  He would not perhaps like to live with the old couple, whose ways
and hours might not agree with those of a younger man, accustomed to
different society (Jos bowed at this compliment); but, the Major
pointed out, how advantageous it would be for Jos Sedley to have a
house of his own in London, and not a mere bachelor's establishment as
before; how his sister Amelia would be the very person to preside over
it; how elegant, how gentle she was, and of what refined good manners.
He recounted stories of the success which Mrs. George Osborne had had
in former days at Brussels, and in London, where she was much admired
by people of very great fashion; and he then hinted how becoming it
would be for Jos to send Georgy to a good school and make a man of him,
for his mother and her parents would be sure to spoil him.  In a word,
this artful Major made the civilian promise to take charge of Amelia
and her unprotected child.  He did not know as yet what events had
happened in the little Sedley family, and how death had removed the
mother, and riches had carried off George from Amelia.  But the fact is
that every day and always, this love-smitten and middle-aged gentleman
was thinking about Mrs. Osborne, and his whole heart was bent upon
doing her good.  He coaxed, wheedled, cajoled, and complimented Jos
Sedley with a perseverance and cordiality of which he was not aware
himself, very likely; but some men who have unmarried sisters or
daughters even, may remember how uncommonly agreeable gentlemen are to
the male relations when they are courting the females; and perhaps this
rogue of a Dobbin was urged by a similar hypocrisy.

The truth is, when Major Dobbin came on board the Ramchumder, very
sick, and for the three days she lay in the Madras Roads, he did not
begin to rally, nor did even the appearance and recognition of his old
acquaintance, Mr. Sedley, on board much cheer him, until after a
conversation which they had one day, as the Major was laid languidly on
the deck.  He said then he thought he was doomed; he had left a little
something to his godson in his will, and he trusted Mrs. Osborne would
remember him kindly and be happy in the marriage she was about to make.
"Married? not the least," Jos answered; "he had heard from her:  she
made no mention of the marriage, and by the way, it was curious, she
wrote to say that Major Dobbin was going to be married, and hoped that
HE would be happy." What were the dates of Sedley's letters from
Europe? The civilian fetched them. They were two months later than the
Major's; and the ship's surgeon congratulated himself upon the
treatment adopted by him towards his new patient, who had been
consigned to shipboard by the Madras practitioner with very small hopes
indeed; for, from that day, the very day that he changed the draught,
Major Dobbin began to mend. And thus it was that deserving officer,
Captain Kirk, was disappointed of his majority.

After they passed St.  Helena, Major Dobbin's gaiety and strength was
such as to astonish all his fellow passengers.  He larked with the
midshipmen, played single-stick with the mates, ran up the shrouds like
a boy, sang a comic song one night to the amusement of the whole party
assembled over their grog after supper, and rendered himself so gay,
lively, and amiable that even Captain Bragg, who thought there was
nothing in his passenger, and considered he was a poor-spirited feller
at first, was constrained to own that the Major was a reserved but
well-informed and meritorious officer.  "He ain't got distangy manners,
dammy," Bragg observed to his first mate; "he wouldn't do at Government
House, Roper, where his Lordship and Lady William was as kind to me,
and shook hands with me before the whole company, and asking me at
dinner to take beer with him, before the Commander-in-Chief himself; he
ain't got manners, but there's something about him--" And thus Captain
Bragg showed that he possessed discrimination as a man, as well as
ability as a commander.

But a calm taking place when the Ramchunder was within ten days' sail
of England, Dobbin became so impatient and ill-humoured as to surprise
those comrades who had before admired his vivacity and good temper. He
did not recover until the breeze sprang up again, and was in a highly
excited state when the pilot came on board.  Good God, how his heart
beat as the two friendly spires of Southampton came in sight.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: At her mother's funeral, Amelia almost wishes she were in the casket instead. Her life seems like it's over. She is forced to live on the charity of Mr. Osborne and to take care of her aging and somewhat mentally unstable father. Still, she bucks up and determines to try her best to make her father's time on earth happy. She sews, cooks, plays cards, and sings, and he is at least appreciative. Meanwhile, Major Dobbin has been traveling from India back to England. In the middle of his trip, he fell gravely ill. The doctors finally washed their hands of him and assumed he would die. Then he briefly recovered, then fell sick again, then again kind of recovered and got on the ship to go around the Cape of Good Hope, the southernmost tip of Africa. Dobbin is traveling with Jos, who has now served out his appointment in India and can return home to live on his pension. Jos is lively and generous onboard the ship, but still as vain as ever. In the last days of his illness, Dobbin talked about Amelia to Jos, who told him that she was not actually going to be married. Dobbin recovered in no time at all. As they travel, Dobbin talks about Amelia and George Jr. to Jos all the time, basically trying to get him to agree to take care of them in London. Jos agrees. Obviously, Dobbin doesn't know yet that Mrs. Sedley is dead and that George Jr. lives with Mr. Osborne.


prompt:
Chapter: Our Friend the Major

Our Major had rendered himself so popular on board the Ramchunder that
when he and Mr. Sedley descended into the welcome shore-boat which was
to take them from the ship, the whole crew, men and officers, the great
Captain Bragg himself leading off, gave three cheers for Major Dobbin,
who blushed very much and ducked his head in token of thanks.  Jos, who
very likely thought the cheers were for himself, took off his
gold-laced cap and waved it majestically to his friends, and they were
pulled to shore and landed with great dignity at the pier, whence they
proceeded to the Royal George Hotel.

Although the sight of that magnificent round of beef, and the silver
tankard suggestive of real British home-brewed ale and porter, which
perennially greet the eyes of the traveller returning from foreign
parts who enters the coffee-room of the George, are so invigorating and
delightful that a man entering such a comfortable snug homely English
inn might well like to stop some days there, yet Dobbin began to talk
about a post-chaise instantly, and was no sooner at Southampton than he
wished to be on the road to London.  Jos, however, would not hear of
moving that evening.  Why was he to pass a night in a post-chaise
instead of a great large undulating downy feather-bed which was there
ready to replace the horrid little narrow crib in which the portly
Bengal gentleman had been confined during the voyage? He could not
think of moving till his baggage was cleared, or of travelling until he
could do so with his chillum.  So the Major was forced to wait over
that night, and dispatched a letter to his family announcing his
arrival, entreating from Jos a promise to write to his own friends.
Jos promised, but didn't keep his promise.  The Captain, the surgeon,
and one or two passengers came and dined with our two gentlemen at the
inn, Jos exerting himself in a sumptuous way in ordering the dinner and
promising to go to town the next day with the Major. The landlord said
it did his eyes good to see Mr. Sedley take off his first pint of
porter.  If I had time and dared to enter into digressions, I would
write a chapter about that first pint of porter drunk upon English
ground. Ah, how good it is!  It is worth-while to leave home for a
year, just to enjoy that one draught.

Major Dobbin made his appearance the next morning very neatly shaved
and dressed, according to his wont. Indeed, it was so early in the
morning that nobody was up in the house except that wonderful Boots of
an inn who never seems to want sleep; and the Major could hear the
snores of the various inmates of the house roaring through the
corridors as he creaked about in those dim passages.  Then the
sleepless Boots went shirking round from door to door, gathering up at
each the Bluchers, Wellingtons, Oxonians, which stood outside. Then
Jos's native servant arose and began to get ready his master's
ponderous dressing apparatus and prepare his hookah; then the
maidservants got up, and meeting the dark man in the passages,
shrieked, and mistook him for the devil.  He and Dobbin stumbled over
their pails in the passages as they were scouring the decks of the
Royal George.  When the first unshorn waiter appeared and unbarred the
door of the inn, the Major thought that the time for departure was
arrived, and ordered a post-chaise to be fetched instantly, that they
might set off.

He then directed his steps to Mr. Sedley's room and opened the curtains
of the great large family bed wherein Mr. Jos was snoring. "Come, up!
Sedley," the Major said, "it's time to be off; the chaise will be at
the door in half an hour."

Jos growled from under the counterpane to know what the time was; but
when he at last extorted from the blushing Major (who never told fibs,
however they might be to his advantage) what was the real hour of the
morning, he broke out into a volley of bad language, which we will not
repeat here, but by which he gave Dobbin to understand that he would
jeopardy his soul if he got up at that moment, that the Major might go
and be hanged, that he would not travel with Dobbin, and that it was
most unkind and ungentlemanlike to disturb a man out of his sleep in
that way; on which the discomfited Major was obliged to retreat,
leaving Jos to resume his interrupted slumbers.

The chaise came up presently, and the Major would wait no longer.

If he had been an English nobleman travelling on a pleasure tour, or a
newspaper courier bearing dispatches (government messages are generally
carried much more quietly), he could not have travelled more quickly.
The post-boys wondered at the fees he flung amongst them. How happy and
green the country looked as the chaise whirled rapidly from mile-stone
to mile-stone, through neat country towns where landlords came out to
welcome him with smiles and bows; by pretty roadside inns, where the
signs hung on the elms, and horses and waggoners were drinking under
the chequered shadow of the trees; by old halls and parks; rustic
hamlets clustered round ancient grey churches--and through the charming
friendly English landscape.  Is there any in the world like it? To a
traveller returning home it looks so kind--it seems to shake hands with
you as you pass through it. Well, Major Dobbin passed through all this
from Southampton to London, and without noting much beyond the
milestones along the road.  You see he was so eager to see his parents
at Camberwell.

He grudged the time lost between Piccadilly and his old haunt at the
Slaughters', whither he drove faithfully. Long years had passed since
he saw it last, since he and George, as young men, had enjoyed many a
feast, and held many a revel there.  He had now passed into the stage
of old-fellow-hood.  His hair was grizzled, and many a passion and
feeling of his youth had grown grey in that interval. There, however,
stood the old waiter at the door, in the same greasy black suit, with
the same double chin and flaccid face, with the same huge bunch of
seals at his fob, rattling his money in his pockets as before, and
receiving the Major as if he had gone away only a week ago.  "Put the
Major's things in twenty-three, that's his room," John said, exhibiting
not the least surprise.  "Roast fowl for your dinner, I suppose.  You
ain't got married? They said you was married--the Scotch surgeon of
yours was here.  No, it was Captain Humby of the thirty-third, as was
quartered with the --th in Injee. Like any warm water? What do you come
in a chay for--ain't the coach good enough?" And with this, the
faithful waiter, who knew and remembered every officer who used the
house, and with whom ten years were but as yesterday, led the way up to
Dobbin's old room, where stood the great moreen bed, and the shabby
carpet, a thought more dingy, and all the old black furniture covered
with faded chintz, just as the Major recollected them in his youth.

He remembered George pacing up and down the room, and biting his nails,
and swearing that the Governor must come round, and that if he didn't,
he didn't care a straw, on the day before he was married. He could
fancy him walking in, banging the door of Dobbin's room, and his own
hard by--

"You ain't got young," John said, calmly surveying his friend of former
days.

Dobbin laughed.  "Ten years and a fever don't make a man young, John,"
he said.  "It is you that are always young--no, you are always old."

"What became of Captain Osborne's widow?" John said.  "Fine young
fellow that.  Lord, how he used to spend his money.  He never came back
after that day he was marched from here.  He owes me three pound at
this minute.  Look here, I have it in my book.  'April 10, 1815,
Captain Osborne:  3 pounds.' I wonder whether his father would pay
me," and so saying, John of the Slaughters' pulled out the very morocco
pocket-book in which he had noted his loan to the Captain, upon a
greasy faded page still extant, with many other scrawled memoranda
regarding the bygone frequenters of the house.

Having inducted his customer into the room, John retired with perfect
calmness; and Major Dobbin, not without a blush and a grin at his own
absurdity, chose out of his kit the very smartest and most becoming
civil costume he possessed, and laughed at his own tanned face and grey
hair, as he surveyed them in the dreary little toilet-glass on the
dressing-table.

"I'm glad old John didn't forget me," he thought. "She'll know me, too,
I hope." And he sallied out of the inn, bending his steps once more in
the direction of Brompton.

Every minute incident of his last meeting with Amelia was present to
the constant man's mind as he walked towards her house.  The arch and
the Achilles statue were up since he had last been in Piccadilly; a
hundred changes had occurred which his eye and mind vaguely noted.  He
began to tremble as he walked up the lane from Brompton, that
well-remembered lane leading to the street where she lived.  Was she
going to be married or not? If he were to meet her with the little
boy--Good God, what should he do? He saw a woman coming to him with a
child of five years old--was that she? He began to shake at the mere
possibility.  When he came up to the row of houses, at last, where she
lived, and to the gate, he caught hold of it and paused.  He might have
heard the thumping of his own heart. "May God Almighty bless her,
whatever has happened," he thought to himself.  "Psha!  she may be gone
from here," he said and went in through the gate.

The window of the parlour which she used to occupy was open, and there
were no inmates in the room.  The Major thought he recognized the
piano, though, with the picture over it, as it used to be in former
days, and his perturbations were renewed.  Mr. Clapp's brass plate was
still on the door, at the knocker of which Dobbin performed a summons.

A buxom-looking lass of sixteen, with bright eyes and purple cheeks,
came to answer the knock and looked hard at the Major as he leant back
against the little porch.

He was as pale as a ghost and could hardly falter out the words--"Does
Mrs. Osborne live here?"

She looked him hard in the face for a moment--and then turning white
too--said, "Lord bless me--it's Major Dobbin." She held out both her
hands shaking--"Don't you remember me?" she said.  "I used to call you
Major Sugarplums." On which, and I believe it was for the first time
that he ever so conducted himself in his life, the Major took the girl
in his arms and kissed her. She began to laugh and cry hysterically,
and calling out "Ma, Pa!" with all her voice, brought up those worthy
people, who had already been surveying the Major from the casement of
the ornamental kitchen, and were astonished to find their daughter in
the little passage in the embrace of a great tall man in a blue
frock-coat and white duck trousers.

"I'm an old friend," he said--not without blushing though.  "Don't you
remember me, Mrs. Clapp, and those good cakes you used to make for tea?
Don't you recollect me, Clapp? I'm George's godfather, and just come
back from India." A great shaking of hands ensued--Mrs. Clapp was
greatly affected and delighted; she called upon heaven to interpose a
vast many times in that passage.

The landlord and landlady of the house led the worthy Major into the
Sedleys' room (whereof he remembered every single article of furniture,
from the old brass ornamented piano, once a natty little instrument,
Stothard maker, to the screens and the alabaster miniature tombstone,
in the midst of which ticked Mr. Sedley's gold watch), and there, as he
sat down in the lodger's vacant arm-chair, the father, the mother, and
the daughter, with a thousand ejaculatory breaks in the narrative,
informed Major Dobbin of what we know already, but of particulars in
Amelia's history of which he was not aware--namely of Mrs. Sedley's
death, of George's reconcilement with his grandfather Osborne, of the
way in which the widow took on at leaving him, and of other particulars
of her life. Twice or thrice he was going to ask about the marriage
question, but his heart failed him. He did not care to lay it bare to
these people.  Finally, he was informed that Mrs. O.  was gone to walk
with her pa in Kensington Gardens, whither she always went with the old
gentleman (who was very weak and peevish now, and led her a sad life,
though she behaved to him like an angel, to be sure), of a fine
afternoon, after dinner.

"I'm very much pressed for time," the Major said, "and have business
to-night of importance.  I should like to see Mrs. Osborne tho'.
Suppose Miss Polly would come with me and show me the way?"

Miss Polly was charmed and astonished at this proposal.  She knew the
way.  She would show Major Dobbin.  She had often been with Mr. Sedley
when Mrs. O. was gone--was gone Russell Square way--and knew the bench
where he liked to sit.  She bounced away to her apartment and appeared
presently in her best bonnet and her mamma's yellow shawl and large
pebble brooch, of which she assumed the loan in order to make herself a
worthy companion for the Major.

That officer, then, in his blue frock-coat and buckskin gloves, gave
the young lady his arm, and they walked away very gaily.  He was glad
to have a friend at hand for the scene which he dreaded somehow.  He
asked a thousand more questions from his companion about Amelia:  his
kind heart grieved to think that she should have had to part with her
son.  How did she bear it? Did she see him often? Was Mr. Sedley pretty
comfortable now in a worldly point of view? Polly answered all these
questions of Major Sugarplums to the very best of her power.

And in the midst of their walk an incident occurred which, though very
simple in its nature, was productive of the greatest delight to Major
Dobbin.  A pale young man with feeble whiskers and a stiff white
neckcloth came walking down the lane, en sandwich--having a lady, that
is, on each arm.  One was a tall and commanding middle-aged female,
with features and a complexion similar to those of the clergyman of the
Church of England by whose side she marched, and the other a stunted
little woman with a dark face, ornamented by a fine new bonnet and
white ribbons, and in a smart pelisse, with a rich gold watch in the
midst of her person.  The gentleman, pinioned as he was by these two
ladies, carried further a parasol, shawl, and basket, so that his arms
were entirely engaged, and of course he was unable to touch his hat in
acknowledgement of the curtsey with which Miss Mary Clapp greeted him.

He merely bowed his head in reply to her salutation, which the two
ladies returned with a patronizing air, and at the same time looking
severely at the individual in the blue coat and bamboo cane who
accompanied Miss Polly.

"Who's that?" asked the Major, amused by the group, and after he had
made way for the three to pass up the lane.  Mary looked at him rather
roguishly.

"That is our curate, the Reverend Mr. Binny (a twitch from Major
Dobbin), and his sister Miss B.  Lord bless us, how she did use to
worret us at Sunday-school; and the other lady, the little one with a
cast in her eye and the handsome watch, is Mrs. Binny--Miss Grits that
was; her pa was a grocer, and kept the Little Original Gold Tea Pot in
Kensington Gravel Pits.  They were married last month, and are just
come back from Margate.  She's five thousand pound to her fortune; but
her and Miss B., who made the match, have quarrelled already."

If the Major had twitched before, he started now, and slapped the
bamboo on the ground with an emphasis which made Miss Clapp cry, "Law,"
and laugh too.  He stood for a moment, silent, with open mouth, looking
after the retreating young couple, while Miss Mary told their history;
but he did not hear beyond the announcement of the reverend gentleman's
marriage; his head was swimming with felicity.  After this rencontre he
began to walk double quick towards the place of his destination--and
yet they were too soon (for he was in a great tremor at the idea of a
meeting for which he had been longing any time these ten
years)--through the Brompton lanes, and entering at the little old
portal in Kensington Garden wall.

"There they are," said Miss Polly, and she felt him again start back on
her arm.  She was a confidante at once of the whole business. She knew
the story as well as if she had read it in one of her favourite
novel-books--Fatherless Fanny, or the Scottish Chiefs.

"Suppose you were to run on and tell her," the Major said.  Polly ran
forward, her yellow shawl streaming in the breeze.

Old Sedley was seated on a bench, his handkerchief placed over his
knees, prattling away, according to his wont, with some old story about
old times to which Amelia had listened and awarded a patient smile many
a time before.  She could of late think of her own affairs, and smile
or make other marks of recognition of her father's stories, scarcely
hearing a word of the old man's tales. As Mary came bouncing along, and
Amelia caught sight of her, she started up from her bench.  Her first
thought was that something had happened to Georgy, but the sight of the
messenger's eager and happy face dissipated that fear in the timorous
mother's bosom.

"News!  News!" cried the emissary of Major Dobbin. "He's come!  He's
come!"

"Who is come?" said Emmy, still thinking of her son.

"Look there," answered Miss Clapp, turning round and pointing; in which
direction Amelia looking, saw Dobbin's lean figure and long shadow
stalking across the grass.  Amelia started in her turn, blushed up,
and, of course, began to cry.  At all this simple little creature's
fetes, the grandes eaux were accustomed to play. He looked at her--oh,
how fondly--as she came running towards him, her hands before her,
ready to give them to him.  She wasn't changed. She was a little pale,
a little stouter in figure.  Her eyes were the same, the kind trustful
eyes.  There were scarce three lines of silver in her soft brown hair.
She gave him both her hands as she looked up flushing and smiling
through her tears into his honest homely face.  He took the two little
hands between his two and held them there.  He was speechless for a
moment.  Why did he not take her in his arms and swear that he would
never leave her? She must have yielded:  she could not but have obeyed
him.

"I--I've another arrival to announce," he said after a pause.

"Mrs. Dobbin?" Amelia said, making a movement back--why didn't he speak?

"No," he said, letting her hands go:  "Who has told you those lies? I
mean, your brother Jos came in the same ship with me, and is come home
to make you all happy."

"Papa, Papa!" Emmy cried out, "here are news!  My brother is in
England.  He is come to take care of you. Here is Major Dobbin."

Mr. Sedley started up, shaking a great deal and gathering up his
thoughts.  Then he stepped forward and made an old-fashioned bow to the
Major, whom he called Mr. Dobbin, and hoped his worthy father, Sir
William, was quite well.  He proposed to call upon Sir William, who had
done him the honour of a visit a short time ago.  Sir William had not
called upon the old gentleman for eight years--it was that visit he was
thinking of returning.

"He is very much shaken," Emmy whispered as Dobbin went up and
cordially shook hands with the old man.

Although he had such particular business in London that evening, the
Major consented to forego it upon Mr. Sedley's invitation to him to
come home and partake of tea.  Amelia put her arm under that of her
young friend with the yellow shawl and headed the party on their return
homewards, so that Mr. Sedley fell to Dobbin's share. The old man
walked very slowly and told a number of ancient histories about himself
and his poor Bessy, his former prosperity, and his bankruptcy.  His
thoughts, as is usual with failing old men, were quite in former times.
The present, with the exception of the one catastrophe which he felt,
he knew little about.  The Major was glad to let him talk on.  His eyes
were fixed upon the figure in front of him--the dear little figure
always present to his imagination and in his prayers, and visiting his
dreams wakeful or slumbering.

Amelia was very happy, smiling, and active all that evening, performing
her duties as hostess of the little entertainment with the utmost grace
and propriety, as Dobbin thought.  His eyes followed her about as they
sat in the twilight.  How many a time had he longed for that moment and
thought of her far away under hot winds and in weary marches, gentle
and happy, kindly ministering to the wants of old age, and decorating
poverty with sweet submission--as he saw her now.  I do not say that
his taste was the highest, or that it is the duty of great intellects
to be content with a bread-and-butter paradise, such as sufficed our
simple old friend; but his desires were of this sort, whether for good
or bad, and, with Amelia to help him, he was as ready to drink as many
cups of tea as Doctor Johnson.

Amelia seeing this propensity, laughingly encouraged it and looked
exceedingly roguish as she administered to him cup after cup.  It is
true she did not know that the Major had had no dinner and that the
cloth was laid for him at the Slaughters', and a plate laid thereon to
mark that the table was retained, in that very box in which the Major
and George had sat many a time carousing, when she was a child just
come home from Miss Pinkerton's school.

The first thing Mrs. Osborne showed the Major was Georgy's miniature,
for which she ran upstairs on her arrival at home.  It was not half
handsome enough of course for the boy, but wasn't it noble of him to
think of bringing it to his mother? Whilst her papa was awake she did
not talk much about Georgy.  To hear about Mr. Osborne and Russell
Square was not agreeable to the old man, who very likely was
unconscious that he had been living for some months past mainly on the
bounty of his richer rival, and lost his temper if allusion was made to
the other.

Dobbin told him all, and a little more perhaps than all, that had
happened on board the Ramchunder, and exaggerated Jos's benevolent
dispositions towards his father and resolution to make him comfortable
in his old days.  The truth is that during the voyage the Major had
impressed this duty most strongly upon his fellow-passenger and
extorted promises from him that he would take charge of his sister and
her child.  He soothed Jos's irritation with regard to the bills which
the old gentleman had drawn upon him, gave a laughing account of his
own sufferings on the same score and of the famous consignment of wine
with which the old man had favoured him, and brought Mr. Jos, who was
by no means an ill-natured person when well-pleased and moderately
flattered, to a very good state of feeling regarding his relatives in
Europe.

And in fine I am ashamed to say that the Major stretched the truth so
far as to tell old Mr. Sedley that it was mainly a desire to see his
parent which brought Jos once more to Europe.

At his accustomed hour Mr. Sedley began to doze in his chair, and then
it was Amelia's opportunity to commence her conversation, which she did
with great eagerness--it related exclusively to Georgy.  She did not
talk at all about her own sufferings at breaking from him, for indeed,
this worthy woman, though she was half-killed by the separation from
the child, yet thought it was very wicked in her to repine at losing
him; but everything concerning him, his virtues, talents, and
prospects, she poured out.  She described his angelic beauty; narrated
a hundred instances of his generosity and greatness of mind whilst
living with her; how a Royal Duchess had stopped and admired him in
Kensington Gardens; how splendidly he was cared for now, and how he had
a groom and a pony; what quickness and cleverness he had, and what a
prodigiously well-read and delightful person the Reverend Lawrence Veal
was, George's master.  "He knows EVERYTHING," Amelia said.  "He has the
most delightful parties.  You who are so learned yourself, and have
read so much, and are so clever and accomplished--don't shake your head
and say no--HE always used to say you were--you will be charmed with
Mr. Veal's parties. The last Tuesday in every month.  He says there is
no place in the bar or the senate that Georgy may not aspire to.  Look
here," and she went to the piano-drawer and drew out a theme of
Georgy's composition.  This great effort of genius, which is still in
the possession of George's mother, is as follows:

On Selfishness--Of all the vices which degrade the human character,
Selfishness is the most odious and contemptible.  An undue love of Self
leads to the most monstrous crimes and occasions the greatest
misfortunes both in States and Families.  As a selfish man will
impoverish his family and often bring them to ruin, so a selfish king
brings ruin on his people and often plunges them into war.

Example:  The selfishness of Achilles, as remarked by the poet Homer,
occasioned a thousand woes to the Greeks--muri Achaiois alge
etheke--(Hom. Il. A. 2). The selfishness of the late Napoleon Bonaparte
occasioned innumerable wars in Europe and caused him to perish,
himself, in a miserable island--that of Saint Helena in the Atlantic
Ocean.

We see by these examples that we are not to consult our own interest
and ambition, but that we are to consider the interests of others as
well as our own.

George S.  Osborne Athene House, 24 April, 1827

"Think of him writing such a hand, and quoting Greek too, at his age,"
the delighted mother said.  "Oh, William," she added, holding out her
hand to the Major, "what a treasure Heaven has given me in that boy!
He is the comfort of my life--and he is the image of--of him that's
gone!"

"Ought I to be angry with her for being faithful to him?" William
thought.  "Ought I to be jealous of my friend in the grave, or hurt
that such a heart as Amelia's can love only once and for ever? Oh,
George, George, how little you knew the prize you had, though." This
sentiment passed rapidly through William's mind as he was holding
Amelia's hand, whilst the handkerchief was veiling her eyes.

"Dear friend," she said, pressing the hand which held hers, "how good,
how kind you always have been to me! See!  Papa is stirring. You will
go and see Georgy tomorrow, won't you?"

"Not to-morrow," said poor old Dobbin.  "I have business." He did not
like to own that he had not as yet been to his parents' and his dear
sister Anne--a remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated
person will blame the Major.  And presently he took his leave, leaving
his address behind him for Jos, against the latter's arrival.  And so
the first day was over, and he had seen her.

When he got back to the Slaughters', the roast fowl was of course cold,
in which condition he ate it for supper.  And knowing what early hours
his family kept, and that it would be needless to disturb their
slumbers at so late an hour, it is on record, that Major Dobbin treated
himself to half-price at the Haymarket Theatre that evening, where let
us hope he enjoyed himself.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Jos and Dobbin disembark and take a room at a famous inn. Their first meal of British roast beef and beer is heavenly. Dobbin wants to be off to London ASAP, but Jos is tired and cranky and fat and doesn't want to go without all his stuff. Dobbin agrees to stay overnight at the inn but gets up at the crack of dawn and wants to be off. He wakes Jos up, but when Jos finds out what time it is he curses and yells and then goes back to sleep. Dobbin takes the next carriage out of there and makes super-fast time through the countryside. Why on earth is he in such a hurry? Yes, mysterious. In London, Dobbin goes to his old club and gets a room and a snack there. Quickly, he hurries off to Amelia's old neighborhood. He is totally freaking out at this point. He starts to shake when he sees a woman walking with a child...it's not her. At the house, he see the Clapp family, who recognize him after a second or two and tell him all about Mrs. Sedley's death and where George Jr. lives now. He wants to ask whether Amelia is married but can't come out with it. Finally they tell him that she is out for a walk with her father, and that Polly Clapp knows where they like to walk and can take him there. On the way, they run across a guy walking with a woman on each arm. Polly says hello and tells Dobbin that this is Mr. Binny. Dobbin kind of does a twitch at this. Then it turns out the two ladies are his sister...and his wife. Yay! Amelia isn't married to him! Oh, wait, we already knew that. But Dobbin didn't. He's psyched. Polly and Dobbin get to the park and see Amelia and Mr. Sedley. Dobbin turns pale and then red and then twitches around. Polly would have to be a total idiot not to figure out that he still has the hots for Amelia. Dobbin asks her to go tell Amelia that he's there. When Amelia sees him, she starts to cry. Her first question: So where's Mrs. Dobbin? Dobbin tells her he's not married either. She's psyched . Then he tells her that Jos came with him too and that he's ready to take care of her and Mr. Sedley. Mr. Sedley now starts saying hello to Dobbin and it's clear that he's senile. All of them go back to the house and have some tea. Amelia tells Dobbin all about George Jr. Seriously, all about George Jr. She's obsessed with her kid and how much he is like his dead father. Dobbin is sort of sad. He leaves and goes to the theater, feeling a little guilty that he hasn't seen his own family yet.