“I don’t want to dine; I should like to have a cup of tea.”
He frowned a little more, and deigned to hear my request to the end.
“Can I?” I repeated.
He spoke not; he brought his eyebrows still lower down, and solemnly shook his head.
“Can’t I really?” I continued.
At last he spoke.
“You can,” quoth he, “for a dollar.”
And, taking the bill of fare in his hands, without wasting any more of his precious utterances, he pointed out to me:
“Each meal one dollar.”
The argument was unanswerable.