ve sat in Dr.
Johnson's chair!"

"_I_ think he was an ill-mannered old man!" quoth Norah, with her nose
tilted. Which seemed to end the matter, so far as they were
concerned.

But if the Billabong family took no interest in Dr. Johnson, they had
a deep affection for the old inn itself. They loved its dim rooms
with their blackened oak, and it was a never-ending delight to watch
the medley of people who came there for meals: actors, artists,
literary folk, famous and otherwise; Americans, foreigners, Colonials;
politicians, fighting men of both Services, busy City men: for
everybody comes, sooner or later, to the old _Cheshire Cheese_. Being
people of plain tastes they liked the solid, honest meals--especially
since increasing War-prices were already inducing hotels and
restaurants everywhere to disguise a tablespoonful of hashed oddments
under an elegant French name and sell it for as much money as a dinner
for a hungry man. Norah used to fight shy of the famous
"lark-pudding" until it was whispered to her that what was not good
beef steaks in the dish was nothing more than pigeon or possibly even
sparrow! after which she enjoyed it, and afterwards pilgrimaged to the
kitchen to see the great blue bowls, as big as a wash-hand basin, in
which the puddings have been made since Dr. Johnson's time, and the
great copper in which they are boiled all night. Legend says that any
one who can eat three helpings of lark-pudding is presented with all
that remains: but no one has ever heard of a hero able to manage his
third plateful!

Best of all the Billabong folk loved the great cellars under the inn,
which were once the cloisters of an old monastery: where there are
unexpected steps, and dim archways, and winding paths where it is very
easy to imagine that you see bare-footed friars with brown habits and
rope girdles pacing slowly along. There they bought quaint brown jars
and mustard-pots of the kind that are used, and have always been used,
on the tables above. But best of all were the great oaken beams above
them, solid as England itself, but blackened and charred by the Great
Fire of 1666. Norah used to touch the burned surface gently,
wondering if it was not a dream--if the hand on the broken charcoal
were really her own, more used to Bosun's bridle on the wide plains of
Billabong!

There were not many people in the room as they came in this evening,
for it was early; dinner, indeed, was scarcely ready, and a f