"'Yes, sir,' responded the waiter. 'Beg pardon, sir. No offence, I hope; but custom to pay here, sir. Shall be happy to accommodate you, sir. Know what a gentleman is.'
"'Thank you, I will not trouble you,' said Ferdinand. 'Get me that note changed.'
"'Yes, sir,' replied the little waiter, bowing very low, as he disappeared.
"'Gentleman in best drawing-room wants breakfast. Gentleman in best drawing-room wants change for a ten-pound note. Breakfast immediately for gentleman in best drawing-room. Tea, coffee, toast, ham, tongue, and a devil. A regular nob!'"
CLIFFORD'S INN
Sloman's has been sketched both by Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Thackeray. In "Vanity Fair" we find it described as the temporary abode of the impecunious Colonel Crawley, and Moss describes his uncomfortable past and present guests in a manner worthy of Fielding himself. There is the "Honourable Capting Famish, of the Fiftieth Dragoons, whose 'mar' had just taken him out after a fortnight, jest to punish him, who punished the champagne, and had a party every night of regular tip-top swells down from the clubs at the West End; and Capting Ragg and the Honourable Deuceace, who lived, when at home, in the Temple. There's a doctor of divinity upstairs, and five gents in the coffee-room who know a good glass of wine when they see it. There is a tably d'hote at half-past five in the front parlour, and cards and music afterwards." Moss's house of durance the great novelist describes as splendid with dirty huge old gilt cornices, dingy yellow satin hangings, while the barred-up windows contrasted with "vast and oddly-gilt picture-frames surrounding pieces sporting and sacred, all of which works were by the greatest masters, and fetched the greatest prices, too, in the bill transactions, in the course of which they were sold and bought over and over again. A quick-eyed Jew boy locks and unlocks the door for visitors, and a dark-eyed maid in curling-papers brings in the tea."
