This explanation was to a certain extent satisfactory, but Doughty did not feel complimented by being taken for a vagrant of that class; he however did not trouble himself much about the matter.
The girl who acted as waitress to the establishment now presented herself, and Joe ordered her to bring him “a pint of beer.”
“Penny, threehalfpenny, or twopenny?” said she.
“The best you have, my gal,” returned Joe, who forthwith pulled out of his pocket some slices of bread and butter and a piece of German sausage, which Mr. Wrench had provided him with; for, as the astute detective observed, “When at Rome do as Rome does—every tramp brings his prog with him, which he devours before going to bed; and you must do the same.”
The landlord’s suspicions were now confirmed. He, as well as the majority of those present, had but little difficulty in reckoning Doughty up. A fourpenny bed, twopenny beer, and bread, butter, and German sausage were fare and accommodation worthy of a palmer.
The pint of beer was brought. Joe asked the old man to have a pint as well—which the latter accepted.
The girl who acted as waitress was what might with justice be termed a character. She was short, crooked, one-eyed, lame on the right leg, flat as a pancake, long as a herring, yellow-white, with a sharp nose, and a mouth the shape of an old-fashioned semicircular door scraper.
She wore a low dark cotton gown with a neck handkerchief which might have been white at the time of the Reformation. Her gown sleeves were tucked up above the elbows, and her gown was pinned up behind.
She was certainly more useful than ornamental, and her life was a hard one. As far as work went she was a wonder, her master never supposing the possibility of her being tired or worn out. She was on the trot from morn to night, from week’s end to week’s end. Whatever good qualities she might have been possessed of had long since disappeared in consequence of the evil association she was constrained to submit to.
She was sullenly stupid, and at times insolent, but she went round and round from January to December, like a horse in a mill, and never complained of the hard life she was leading.