"But I haven't filled up the place. I've been relying on nagging you into coming."
"You know I don't want to," he grumbled yieldingly.
"But I want you to. Don't be angry, dear," she went on, coaxingly. "Haven't I amused you the whole time?"
He ended by promising to come, if not incapacitated by the lunch, and felt fairly secure of passing the evening at home.
After they had wandered about for some time longer and had paid pennies to see a curious compound animal, a sort of ox, sheep, horse, donkey and goat rolled into one, and an abnormally fat woman, more decently clad than the life-size coloured picture of her in the window had led them to imagine, they invaded the love of an eating-house. They stepped within the threshold firmly enough, but then stood hesitant. The place gave them a general sense of brownness. It was the old-fashioned style of coffee-house, with a sanded pathway down the middle and a row of stalls on either side, each separated from its neighbours by tall partitions. Everything was of a dirty brown, panelling, partitions, benches and the bare tables. A brown light came through the dingy windows, and the very odours that hung in the dingy atmosphere suggested the same tint.
A coatless, aproned waiter emerged from the back to greet the first mid-day customers, and, in reply to their enquiry for lunch, invited them to be seated within one of the stalls. After he had wiped their table he disappeared, and he returned in a moment with a table cloth, followed by a shorter and stouter man, also in shirt sleeves. They began to see they had made an impression, and were to be served in accordance with the host's sense of the fitness of things.
The proprietor—for such the stout man was—by way of special civility, remarked that it was fine weather, and asked what he might get them.
"The correct thing," said Lady Thiselton; and, on the man staring, "what everybody usually has here," she added, in explanation.
"Boiled beef and suet to-day, or roast beef and Yorkshire, or chops and steaks," enumerated the man.
So "boiled beef and suet" was ordered on the assumption it was the correct thing, and, while the waiter was busy getting it, the proprietor felt it his duty to entertain them till it came.