“I’ve missed the train,” he said; “so I’ll have to take a room here for the night.”
Harry didn’t know what to say, so he let him in, and gave him a candle, and showed him upstairs to a room.
We didn’t like it at all, but Harry said we couldn’t turn a customer away; and of course Shipsides only came as a customer, and would have to pay for his room.
The next morning he came down, and walked into the coffee-room as bold as brass, and ordered his breakfast. He had eggs and bacon and a chop cooked, and then he wanted hot buttered toast and marmalade.
I waited on him, though I didn’t like it, but I wouldn’t send Miss Ward in. Harry said it was better not.
He talked away to me nineteen to the dozen, but quite grand, just as if he was patronizing our house, and he had the impudence to say that the tea wasn’t strong enough, and would I make him some more, and when he began to tell me how he liked his tea made I flushed up and said, “I think I ought to know how to make tea, Mr. Shipsides.”
“Oh! of course,” he said; “but where do you buy your tea? Perhaps it’s the fault of the article, and not the making.”
“Oh!” I said; “the tea is all right—it’s the same that’s supplied to the dukes, marquises, earls, and barons. You’ve seen it advertised at all the railway-stations.”
I couldn’t help saying it, he made me so indignant. He didn’t say anything, but I made the next tea very weak on purpose, and he drank it without a murmur.
After he’d done his breakfast I put the time-table in front of him, and I said, “The next train’s at 9.15. Hadn’t you better go? You’ll be late to business.”