"If you please, Mr. Peake, you have given me a two—"
"A what?"
"A two, Sir!"
"A two!—God bless my soul!—tut-tut-tut-tut—dear, dear, dear!—God bless my soul! There, dear," and without another word, he, in exchange, laid a one pound note on the desk; a new one, quite clean,—a bright, honest looking note,—mine, the one I had a right to,—my own,—within the limit of my poor deservings.
Thus, my dear sir, I give (as you say you wish to have the facts as accurately stated as possible) the simple, absolute truth.
As a matter of fact Miss Kelly did afterwards play in Morton's "Children in the Wood," to Lamb's great satisfaction. The incident of the roast fowl is in that play.
In Vol. I. will be found more than one eulogy of Miss Kelly's acting.
Page 231, last line. Real hot tears. In Crabb Robinson's diary Miss Kelly relates that when, as Constance, in "King John," Mrs. Siddons (not Mrs. Porter) wept over her, her collar was wet with Mrs. Siddons' tears. Miss Kelly, of course, was playing Arthur.
Page 232, line 7. Impediment … pulpit. This is more true than the casual reader may suppose. Had Lamb not had an impediment in his speech, he would have become, at Christ's Hospital, a Grecian, and have gone to one of the universities; and the ordinary fate of a Grecian was to take orders.
Page 232, line 13. Mr. Liston. Mrs. Cowden Clarke says that Liston the comedian and his wife were among the visitors to the Lambs' rooms at Great Russell Street.