Not in the eggs, by-the-bye. You were pretty safe from them there—the embryo chick was the worst thing that could happen to you.
Not altogether a nice kind of place to pass one’s evenings in, you are thinking. Well, no; but it was uncommonly quiet and snug, and uncommonly cheap, which was rather a point with me. I was, in truth, so hard up that night that I had stood outside the window a good twenty minutes, balancing my last coin—a fourpenny-bit—in my hand, and tossing up, mentally, to decide whether I should spend it in a bed or a supper. I decided on the latter, and entered the coffee-house, where I hoped, after I had eaten, to be able to sleep away an hour or two in peace, if I could get a snug corner to myself.
Several other people, however, seemed to have gone there with something of the same idea, and snored up and down, with their heads comfortably pillowed among the dirty plates and tea-things, while others carried on low, muttered conversations, and one woman was telling an interminable tale, breaking off now and then to whimper.
There was one empty box, in a darkish corner, and I made for that, and ordered my meal—thanking my stars that I had been so lucky as to find such a good place. But I was not left long in undisputed possession of it.
While I was disposing of the very first mouthful the shop-door opened, and a blue-cheeked, anxious-looking man peeped in, as though he were frightened—or, perhaps, ashamed—and glanced eagerly round. Then, as it seemed, finding nothing of a very alarming character, he came a step further in, and stopped again, to have another look, and his eyes fell upon me, and he stared very hard indeed, and came straight to my box, and sat down opposite to me.
I can’t say this made me feel particularly comfortable, for, you see, for some days past I had spent the greater part of my time slipping stealthily round corners, and dodging up and down the sneakiest courts and alleys I could come across, with an idea that every lamp-post was a policeman in disguise that had got his eye on me.
I can’t say I felt much more comfortable at this stranger’s behaviour, when he had taken his seat and ordered a cup of coffee and a round of toast, in a low, confidential tone of voice, just, as it struck me, as a detective might have done who had the coffee-shop keeper in his pay. Then he pulled a very mysterious little brown paper-covered book from his pocket, consisting of some twenty pieces of manuscript, and he attentively read in it, and then fixed his eyes upon the ceiling and mumbled.
Said I to myself, “Perhaps this is some poor parson chap, learning up his sermon for next Sunday.”
But then this was only Monday night; it could hardly be that.
Presently, too, I noticed that he was secretly taking stock of me round the side of the book. What, after all, if the written sheets of paper contained a minute description of myself and the other runaways who were “wanted?”