The appearance of this lady suggested a last appeal.
“Tell them,” said Childe, “that there’s a lady in the case,—a lady who is partial to the view of the cathedral.”
The club sent their compliments, and would be happy to accommodate the lady with a seat among them, whence she might view the cathedral at leisure, while they settled their accounts.
The club were pronounced ill-mannered wretches, and the representations of the landlord about the probable overroasting of the geese, were listened to. Supper was ordered. Roast goose top and bottom;—an informality for which apology was made to Hunt, on the ground that the company liked nothing so well as goose in the prime of the pea-season;—abundance of pease; delicate lamb chops and asparagus, and so forth. Hunt had never before beheld such a feast.
“It will be long enough,” observed a junior member, “before those shabby fellows below treat themselves with such a set-out as this. I never liked their doings when I was an operative: I was one of the other sort.”
“What other sort?”
“One of the good livers, and not one of the frugal. I and some friends of mine used to sup something in this fashion when we earned near three guineas a week. We used to get our fowls from London.”
“Bravo! and what made you leave off trade?”
“I was turned off in bad times, and I shall tell you no more; for I hate to think of that winter of cold and water-gruel. My nose was positively frost-bitten, and my stomach like a wet bladder most part of the twenty-four hours. Pah! it was horrid.”
“You would have exchanged conditions with one of the frugal at that time, probably.”