hich I was divided,
according to my finances. One was in a court close to St. Martin's
Church--at the back of the church,--which is now removed altogether.
The pudding at that shop was made of currants, and was rather a special
pudding, but was dear, twopennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth
of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the
Strand--somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a
stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it,
stuck in whole at wide distances apart. It came up hot at about my time
every day, and many a day did I dine off it. When I dined regularly and
handsomely, I had a saveloy and a penny loaf, or a fourpenny plate of
red beef from a cook's shop; or a plate of bread and cheese and a
glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house opposite our place of
business, called the Lion, or the Lion and something else that I have
forgotten. Once, I remember carrying my own bread (which I had brought
from home in the morning) under my arm, wrapped in a piece of paper,
like a book, and going to a famous alamode beef-house near Drury Lane,
and ordering a 'small plate' of that delicacy to eat with it. What the
waiter thought of such a strange little apparition coming in all alone,
I don't know; but I can see him now, staring at me as I ate my dinner,
and bringing up the other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny for
himself, and I wish he hadn't taken it.
We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough, I used
to get half-a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread and butter.
When I had none, I used to look at a venison shop in Fleet Street; or
I have strolled, at such a time, as far as Covent Garden Market, and
stared at the pineapples. I was fond of wandering about the Adelphi,
because it was a mysterious place, with those dark arches. I see myself
emerging one evening from some of these arches, on a little public-house
close to the river, with an open space before it, where some
coal-heavers were dancing; to look at whom I sat down upon a bench. I
wonder what they thought of me!
I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into the
bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten
what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. I remember
one hot evening I went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the
landlord: 'What is your best--your very best--ale a gl
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