The hungry friend's eyes brightened, but they quickly resumed their gloomy expression as he rejoined, "It's a piece of tin!"
Grimaldi winked again, rubbed the sixpence or the piece of tin very hard, and declared, putting it between his teeth by way of test, that it was as good a sixpence as he would wish to see.
"I don't think it," said the friend, shaking his head.
"I'll tell you what," said Grimaldi, "we'll go to the public-house, and ask the landlord whether it's a good one, or not. They always know."
To this the friend assented, and they hurried on, disputing all the way whether it was really a sixpence, or not; a discovery which could not be made at that time, when the currency was defaced and worn nearly plain, with the ease with which it could be made at present.
The publican, a fat, jolly fellow, was standing at his door, talking to a friend, and the house looked so uncommonly comfortable, that Gomery whispered as they approached, that perhaps it might be best to have some bread and cheese first, and ask about the sixpence afterwards.
Grimaldi nodded his entire assent, and they went in and ordered some bread and cheese, and beer. Having taken the edge off their hunger, they tossed up a farthing which Grimaldi happened to find in the corner of some theretofore undiscovered pocket, to determine who should present the "sixpence." The chance falling on himself, he walked up to the bar, and with a very lofty air, and laying the questionable metal down with a dignity quite his own, requested the landlord to take the bill out of that.
"Just right, sir," said the landlord, looking at the strange face that his customer assumed, and not at the sixpence.
"It's right, sir, is it?" asked Grimaldi, sternly.
"Quite," answered the landlord; "thank ye, gentlemen." And with this he slipped the—whatever it was—into his pocket.