"So bad as that, is it? What's the trouble?"
"I've been up all night and all day, and little to eat and naught to drink, and I be lame."
"Lame, are you?" The official turned to my aunt. "You know you didn't ought to bring a lame old lady into a crowd like this."
"I didn't bring her. My nephew brought us all."
"Then the sooner, I should say, your nephew takes you all away again, the better."
The official took himself off. Mr. Poltifen made a remark. His tone was a trifle sour.
"I cannot say that I think we are spending a profitable and pleasurable day in London. I understood that the object which we had in view was to make researches into Dickens's London, or I should not have brought my books."
The "parish idiot" began to moan.
"I be that hungry--I be! I be!"
"Here," I cried: "here's half-a-crown for you. Go to that refreshment-stall and cram yourself with penny buns to bursting point."