That put my back up, and I said I was very sorry that our spirits were not good enough for Mr. Wilkins; but, of course, if we lost his patronage we should try and bear up with Christian resignation under the loss.
I know it was very wrong of me to say that, because in our business you must always keep your temper, and try to please customers and not offend them. And Mr. Wilkins is really an important local man in his way, and might, if he left us and went to the other house, take a few of the local people with him, though I may say without pride, and not wishing to run my neighbours down, that as the other house is quite a common sort of place, and more used by waggoners and labourers, and with only a very common tap-room, that there wouldn’t be any grave danger of Mr. Wilkins stopping away long, if he did go.
Still, it was not my place to be rude to him, and I never should have been, but for his presuming so much about my “Memoirs.” It wasn’t the first time he had done it, as I have told you before; though, of course, in his heart he meant no harm. Poor old gentleman, it was only his ignorance!
Why I have mentioned about my little difference with Mr. Wilkins is to explain how Tom Dexter and his story got impressed on his mind. It was through this that one day Mr. Wilkins came to me with the Morning Advertiser, which he had borrowed from our coffee-room, in his hand, and he said, “I say, Mrs. Beckett, just look at this advertisement.”
I took it and read it, and I said, “Dear me, I wonder if it’s the same?”
The advertisement was this:—
“Thomas Dexter, formerly of —— Street, London, if alive, is requested to communicate with Mrs. Lyons, such and such an address, London.”
Of course Mr. Wilkins must have his joke, and say what nonsense to say “if alive,” as if Thomas Dexter could communicate with anybody if he was dead; but I didn’t take any notice of him, but went straight out to the stables, where Tom was at work, and showed him the advertisement.
He stared at it, and said, “That’s me, right enough, ma’am, for that’s the street we used to live in before things went wrong.”
“What does it mean, Tom?” I said.