e following Monday
ventured once more within its mazes, though not exactly at six o'clock,
which was the hour appointed for the preliminary experience of tea. I
had experienced that kind of thing once or twice before, and never found
myself in a position of such difficulty as on those occasions. In the
first place I do not care about tea, when it is good; but loathe it when
boiled in a washhouse copper, and poured out from a large tin can, of
which it tastes unpleasantly. But, then again, the quantity as well as
the quality of the viands to be consumed was literally too much for me.
I might have managed one cup of decidedly nasty tea, or what passes
muster for such, but not four or five, which I found to be the minimum.
I could stomach, or secretly dispose of in my pockets, a single slice of
leaden cake or oleaginous bread-and-butter; but I could not do this with
multitudinous slabs of either. I never went to more than one tea-meeting
where I felt at home, and that was at the Soiree Suisse, which takes
place annually in London, where pretty Helvetian damsels brew the most
fragrant coffee and hand round delicious little cakes, arrayed as they
are in their killing national costume and chattering in a dozen
different patois. I had a notion that tea at Kensal New Town would be
very much less eligible, so I stopped away. Perhaps I was prejudiced.
The tea might have been different from what I expected. The experiences
certainly were.

I got there about half-past seven, having allowed an interval of an hour
and a half, which I thought would be sufficient for the most inveterate
tea-drinker, even among the Kensal Town laundresses, should such happen
to be present. I took the precaution, however, of bespeaking a lad of
fifteen to accompany me, in case any of the fragments of the feast
should yet have to be disposed of, since I knew his powers to equal
those of the ostrich in stowing away eatables, especially in the lumpy
cake line. Arrived at the hall, however, I found no symptoms of the tea
save a steamy sort of smell and the rattle of the retreating cups and
saucers. Whether "to my spirit's gain or loss," I had escaped the
banquet and yet got in good time for the subsequent experiences.

A motherly-looking woman stood at the door, and gave me a cheery
invitation to come in. She looked rather askance at my boy, but finding
him properly convoyed by my sober self, she admitted him within the
portal. A good many young gentlemen o