Albert brought tenpence change.
As I counted it, I began, "I say, is this change"—
The Bounder, who had been watching, at once interrupted me. "Don't expose your untutored provincial ignorance," he said; "tenpence a time. Always have it with provincials. Tenpence left? Order another."
It was soon after the Clarion removed its headquarters to London, that I paid my first visit to the Cheshire Cheese, the primitive tavern, with "nicely sanded floor," which, in a dingy Fleet Street court, still rears its antique head in proud and successful defiance of the gimcrack modern amply-mirrored restaurant.
It was a damp, cold, miserable November night, and I had been tramping with the partner of my joys all day through slush and mire in search of houses.
Looking in for letters at the Clarion's gloomy little office in Bouverie Street, I found Fay crouching disconsolately over a handful of expiring embers in the grate.
He had been ill for many weeks, and had been reduced to a painful diet of buns and milk, but yet, if he might not feast, he could still take an interest in other people's feasting. Doctors could not rob him of that comfort.
So he inquired with touching interest where we proposed to dine.
My Bosom's Lord, with native Cornish trend, asked where was food the cheapest.