ot he sneered inwardly, despising
himself and those upon whom he waited.

To one person alone did he exhibit all the bitterness of his feelings,
and that was Mrs. Clover, the sister of his deceased wife. With her he
occasionally spent a Sunday evening in the parlour behind the china
shop, and there would speak the thoughts that oppressed him.

"It isn't that I've any quarrel with the foreign rest'rants, Louisa.
They're all right in their way. They suit a certain public, and they
charge certain prices. But what I do think is mean and low--mean and
low--is to be neither one thing nor the other; to make a sort of show
as if you was 'igh-clawss, and then have it known as you're the
cheapest of the cheap. Potatoes! That I should live to see Chaffey's
'anding out such potatoes! They're more like food for pigs, and I've
known the day when Chaffey's 'ud have thrown 'em at the 'ead of anybody
as delivered 'em such offal. It isn't a place for a self-respecting
man, and I feel it more and more. If a shop-boy wants to take out his
sweetheart and make a pretence of doing it grand, where does he go to?
Why, to Chaffey's. He couldn't afford a real rest'rant; but Chaffey's
looks the same, and Chaffey's is cheap. To hear 'em ordering roast fowl
and Camumbeer cheese to follow--it fair sickens me. Roast fowl! a old
'en as wouldn't be good enough for a real rest'rant to make inter soup!
And the Camumbeer! I've got my private idea, Louisa, about what that
Camumbeer is made of. And when I think of the Cheshire and the Cheddar
we used to top up with! It's 'art-breaking."

From a speaker with such a countenance all this was very impressive.
Mrs. Clover shook her head and wondered what England was coming to. In
return she would tell of the people who came to her shop to hire cups
and saucers just to make a show when they had a friend to tea with
them. There was much of the right spirit in both these persons, for
they sincerely despised shams, though they were not above profiting by
the snobberies of others. But Mrs. Clover found amusement in the state
of things, whereas Mr. Sparkes grew more despondent the more he talked,
and always added with a doleful self-reproach:

"If I'd been half a man I should have left. They'd have taken me on at
Simpkin's, I know they would, or at the Old City Chop House, if I'd
waited for a vacancy. Who'd take me on now? Why, they'd throw it in my
face that I came from Chaffey's, and I shouldn't have half a word t