“’Ot, and buttered,” cried Charlie, with a laugh, as he shut the door after him and rendered further communication impossible.
Wending his way through the poor streets in the midst of which his lodging was situated, our hero at last found an old-clothes store, which he entered.
“I want a suit of old clothes,” he said to the owner, a Jew, who came forward.
The Jew smiled, spread out his hands after the manner of a Frenchman, and said, “My shop, sir, is at your disposal.”
After careful inspection Charlie selected a fustian coat of extremely ragged appearance, with trousers to match, also a sealskin vest of a mangy complexion, likewise a soiled and battered billycock hat so shockingly bad that it was difficult to imagine it to have ever had better days at all.
“Are they clean?” he asked.
“Bin baked and fumigated, sir,” answered the Jew solemnly.
As the look and smell of the garments gave some countenance to the truth of this statement, Charlie paid the price demanded, had them wrapped up in a green cotton handkerchief, and carried them off.
Arrived at his lodging he let himself in, entered his room, and threw the bundle in a corner. Then he rang for tea.
It was growing dark by that time, but a yellow-cotton blind shut out the prospect, and a cheery fire in the grate lighted up the little room brightly, casting a rich glow on the yellow-white table-cloth, which had been already spread, and creating a feeling of coziness in powerful contrast to the sensation of dreariness which had assailed him on his first entrance. When Mrs Butt had placed a paraffin lamp on the table, with a dark-brown teapot, a thick glass sugar-bowl, a cream-jug to match, and a plate of thick-buttered toast that scented the atmosphere deliciously, our hero thought—not for the first time in his life—that wealth was a delusion, besides being a snare.