* * * * *
One meets with all sorts of adventures in coffee-house, and I shall not soon forget a Cockney Amazon in a place near Trafalgar Square, to whom I tendered a sovereign when paying my score. (By the way, one is supposed to pay before he begins to eat, and if he be poorly dressed he is compelled to pay before he eats).
The girl bit the gold piece between her teeth, rang it on the counter, and then looked me and my rags witheringly up and down.
“Where’d you find it?” she at length demanded.
“Some mug left it on the table when he went out, eh, don’t you think?” I retorted.
“Wot’s yer gyme?” she queried, looking me calmly in the eyes.
“I makes ’em,” quoth I.
She sniffed superciliously and gave me the change in small silver, and I had my revenge by biting and ringing every piece of it.
“I’ll give you a ha’penny for another lump of sugar in the tea,” I said.
“I’ll see you in ’ell first,” came the retort courteous. Also, she amplified the retort courteous in divers vivid and unprintable ways.