Jorrocks. Well, sir, a werry pleasant plan too, especially for the innkeeper—and all werry right for a gentleman of fortune like you. My motto, however, is "Waste not, want not," and my wife's father's motto was "Wilful waste brings woeful want," and I likes to have my money's worth.—Now, said he, pulling out a handful of bills, at some places that I go to they charges me six shillings a day for my dinner, and when I was ill and couldn't digest nothing but the lightest and plainest of breakfasts, when a fork breakfast in fact would have made a stiff 'un of me, and my muffin mill was almost stopped, they charged me two shillings for one cake, and sixpence for two eggs.—Now I'm in the tea trade myself, you must know, and I contend that as things go, or at least as things went before the Barbarian eye, as they call Napier, kicked up a row with the Hong merchants, it's altogether a shameful imposition, and I wonder people put up with it.
Stranger. Oh, sir, I don't know. I think that it is the charge all over the country. Besides, it doesn't do to look too closely at these things, and you must allow something for keeping up the coffee-room, you know—fire, candles, and so on.
Jorrocks. But blow me tight, you surely don't want a candle to breakfast by? However, I contends that innkeepers are great fools for making these sort of charges, for it makes people get out of their houses as quick as ever they can, whereas they might be inclined to stay if they could get things moderate.—For my part I likes a coffee-room, but having been used to commercial houses when I travelled, I knows what the charges ought to be. Now, this room is snug enough though small, and won't require no great keeping up.
Stranger. No—but this room is smaller than the generality of them, you know. They frequently have two fires in them, besides no end of oil burning.—I know the expense of these things, for I have a very large house in the country, and rely upon it, innkeepers have not such immense profits as many people imagines—but, as I said before, "live and let live."
Jorrocks. So says I, "live and let live"—but wot I complains of is, that some innkeepers charge so much that they won't let people live. No man is fonder of eating than myself, but I don't like to pay by the mouthful, or yet to drink tea at so much a thimbleful. By the way, Sar, if you are not previously engaged, I should be werry happy to supply you with red Mocho or best Twankay at a very reasonable figure indeed for cash?
Stranger. Thank you, sir, thank you. Those are things I never interfere with—leave all these things to my people. My housekeeper sends me in her book every quarter day, with an account of what she pays. I just look at the amount—add so much for wages, and write a cheque—"live and let live!" say I. However, added he, pulling out his watch, and ringing the bell for the chambermaid, "I hate to get up very early, so I think it is time to go to bed, and I wish you a very good night, gentlemen all."
Jorrocks gets up, advances half-way to the door, makes him one of his most obsequious bows, and wishes him a werry good night. Having heard him tramp upstairs and safely deposited in his bedroom, they pulled their chairs together again, and making a smaller circle round the fire, proceeded to canvass their departed friend. Jorrocks began—"I say, wot a regular swell the chap is—a Meltonian, too.—I wonders who the deuce he is. Wish Mr. Nimrod was among us, he could tell us all about him, I dare say. I'm blowed if I didn't take him for a commercial gentleman at first, until he spoke about his carriages. I likes to see gentlemen of fortune making themselves sociable by coming into the coffee-room, instead of sticking themselves up in private sitting-rooms, as if nobody was good enough for them. You know Melton, Mr. York; did you ever see the gentleman out?"
"I can't say that I ever did," said his friend, "but people look so different in their red coats to what they do in mufti, that there's no such thing as recognising them unless you had a previous acquaintance with them. The fields in Leicestershire are sometimes so large that it requires a residence to get anything like a general knowledge of the hunt, and, you know, Northamptonshire's the country for my money, after Surrey, of course."
"I don't think he is a gentleman," observed a thin sallow-complexioned young man, who, sitting on one side of the fire, had watched the stranger very narrowly without joining in the conversation. "He gives me more the idea of a gentleman's servant, acting the part of master, than anything else."
Jorrocks. Oh! he is a gentleman, I'm sure—besides, a servant wouldn't travel in a carriage you know, and he talked about greasing the wheels and all that sort of thing, which showed he was familiar with the thing.