After the various escapades through which I had passed since leaving Castlemore, my clothes were in a sad condition, my boots especially being coated with mud, so that for a moment I shrank from entering the building. Summoning courage, however, I pushed open the door and found myself in a bare-looking room with several large illuminated texts on the walls, and three wooden tables, at one of which a man was seated drinking a cup of tea.
A clock over the mantelpiece showed that it was a quarter-past ten, although I had thought it considerably later. As Patch followed me into the room, leaving damp footmarks on the clean linoleum, a short thin-faced woman, with fair hair drawn very tightly back, entered from the opposite door with a wet dish in one hand and a cloth in the other.
'We can't have dogs in here!' she cried by way of greeting.
'Will it matter if I nurse him?' I asked.
'If he doesn't spoil my floor,' she answered, and as I took Patch up in my arms she added, 'What is it you want?'
'I should like some breakfast.'
'Tea and bread and butter?' she asked.
'How much are eggs?' I inquired.
'Three-halfpence each. Tea a penny the cup, bread and butter a halfpenny a slice.'
I made a hasty calculation in my mind, and being extremely hungry determined to spend sixpence, though it made a rather serious inroad into my remaining four shillings and a penny.