"What ship does he command?"
"The Glamis Castle."
"I know her," exclaimed Hardy; "a fine Indiaman. What the deuce does a swell like him do in these lodgings? He should put up at a hotel."
"His home's at Penge," answered the widow, "and two or three weeks before he sails he always comes and stops with me, and brings his wife. Aren't my lodgings good enough for the captain of an Indiaman?"
"They are good enough for the owner of an Indiaman. They are good enough for a German prince," said Hardy, in his pleasantest manner. "Should I bring this lady here if they were not of the highest?" And nodding to her he stepped on to the pavement, and Julia walked by his side.
He was free in his comments upon the nastiness of the East End of London, and by his abuse of the mud and the shops, and the quality of the passing folks, he implied an apology for introducing Miss Armstrong into such a neighbourhood.
"It's sweeter to me than Bodley," she said, referring to the place she came from. "What is the good of fine houses and broad streets and handsome carriages to a girl who has no money, who has but one friend, from whom she must be shortly separated for ever, perhaps, and whose most ambitious dream dare not go beyond finding a cabin as emigrant or stewardess aboard a ship, and the berth of a servant, or, which is worse, a nursery governess when she arrives?"
They walked for awhile in silence; but the silence was in their mouths, not in the street. One of the music-murdering organs of those days was playing at the street corner they were approaching. Huge wagons were grinding thunder into the solid earth. There was a fight over the way—two Italians were going for each other. A crowd of dirty women were dancing round them, encouraging them by the stimulating plaudits of the stews. An optician, with a row of chronometers in his window, stood upon his doorstep howling, "Police!" They turned the corner, and the notes of the organ died away behind them, and after a little walking they arrived at an eating-house with big windows, and a sheet of paper stuck upon the glass with red wafers, telling what was to be eaten inside.
Hardy and Julia walked in. It was a long room with tables, separated one from another by brass rails and baize curtains, and nettings for receiving headgear. About a dozen people were in it—some of them neighbouring tradesmen, some of them obviously captains and mates. With a few of the men were women, who were evidently wives or sweethearts; in fact, the prices charged kept the place sweet.
Hardy and Miss Armstrong sat down side by side at an empty table. A waiter arrived, looking hard at the lady, and the sailor gave his orders. He guessed the girl was hungry; he knew that he was, and if he could not have spent a sovereign when ten shillings would have handsomely sufficed, he would have been no true salt. It is worth saying here that all the money our friend had was about two hundred pounds, and he had come to London with twenty sovereigns in his pocket, and a chequebook. As he was an only child he would inherit his father's leavings; but what would they amount to? A country practitioner who dispensed his own physic, and was glad to get three-and-sixpence a visit! A country practitioner with thirteen hundred pounds in bad debts on his books, and a horse, gig, and boy to keep! Still, whatever the doctor left would be George Hardy's, who did not value the prospect beyond the worth of the furniture, and had begun to save a little on his own account, with some light dream of amassing enough to enable him to purchase shares in a ship, which he would command.