FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   359   360   361   362   363   364   365   366   367   368   369   370   371   372   373   374   375   376   377   378   379   380   381   382   383  
384   385   386   387   388   389   390   391   392   393   394   395   396   397   398   399   400   401   402   403   404   405   406   407   408   >>   >|  
ile tongue. "Oh, Mrs.--," said Herbert. "I beg your pardon, but might I ask your name?" "No offence, sir; none in life. My name's Whereas. Martha Whereas, and 'as been now for five-and-twenty year. There be'ant many of the gen'lemen about the courts here as don't know some'at of me. And I knew some'at of them too, before they carried their wigs so grandly. My husband, that's Whereas,--you'll all'ays find him at the little stationer's shop outside the gate in Carey Street. You'll know him some of these days, I'll go bail, if you're going to Mr. Die; anyways you'll know his handwrite. Tea to your liking, sir? I all'ays gets cream for gentlemen, sir, unless they tells me not. Milk a 'alfpenny, sir; cream tuppence; three 'alfpence difference; hain't it, sir? So now you can do as you pleases, and if you like bacon and heggs to your breakfastesses you've only to say the words. But then the heggs hain't heggs, that's the truth; and they hain't chickens, but some'at betwixt the two." And so she went on during the whole time that he was eating, moving about from place to place, and putting back into the places which she had chosen for them anything which he had chanced to move; now dusting a bit of furniture with her apron, and then leaning on the back of a chair while she asked him some question as to his habits and future mode of living. She also wore a bonnet, apparently as a customary part of her house costume, and Herbert could not help thinking that she looked very like his Aunt Letty. But when she had gone and taken the breakfast things with her, then began the tedium of the day. It seemed to him as though he had no means of commencing his life in London until he had been with Mr. Prendergast or Mr. Die. And so new did it all feel to him, so strange and wonderful, that he hardly dared to go out of the house by himself and wander about the premises of the Inn. He was not absolutely a stranger in London, for he had been elected at a club before he had left Oxford, and had been up in town twice, staying on each occasion some few weeks. Had he therefore been asked about the metropolis some four months since at Castle Richmond, he would have professed that he knew it well. Starting from Pall Mall he could have gone to any of the central theatres, or to the Parks, or to the houses of Parliament, or to the picture galleries in June. But now in that dingy big square he felt himself to be absolutely a stranger; and when
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   359   360   361   362   363   364   365   366   367   368   369   370   371   372   373   374   375   376   377   378   379   380   381   382   383  
384   385   386   387   388   389   390   391   392   393   394   395   396   397   398   399   400   401   402   403   404   405   406   407   408   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Whereas

 

absolutely

 
London
 

Herbert

 

stranger

 

breakfast

 

things

 

tedium

 

Parliament

 
houses

picture

 

future

 
theatres
 

square

 

costume

 
bonnet
 

apparently

 

customary

 

thinking

 

galleries


living

 
commencing
 

looked

 

Richmond

 

Oxford

 
elected
 

staying

 
metropolis
 

Castle

 
occasion

habits
 

Starting

 

months

 
Prendergast
 

strange

 

wonderful

 
professed
 

wander

 

premises

 
central

moving

 

Street

 
stationer
 

husband

 

handwrite

 

liking

 
grandly
 
twenty
 

Martha

 
pardon