d a choice of viands written in a
scrawling hand upon the scrap of paper:

'Boiled beef and carrots.

'Boiled pork and pease-pudding.'

'It's sixpence-halfpenny if you have it here, sixpence if you go out for
it.'

Paul made his choice, and the boy said 'Vedge?' in an accent of inquiry.

'What's "vedge"?'

The boy looked up in a momentary wonder, and then grinned knowingly, and
shook his head.

'What do you mean by "vedge"?'

'Ah!' said the boy, 'you don't get over me.'

'I'm not trying to get over you. I want to know what you mean.'

'Oh yes,' said the boy; 'of course you do! They don't eat greens and
taters where you come from! Oh dear no; not at all!'

'That's it, is it? Then, I take vedge.'

'If s an extra penny, mind you. You pays on Saturday.'

The boy turned to Mr. Warr, who made his choice also.

A little later a voice said 'Halt!' and there was a clatter of
composing-sticks laid smartly down on the cases. Almost at the same
instant the small boy came in with a pyramid of plates with flat tin
covers. 'Beef and vedge,' shrilled the boy, and, setting down his
burden, charged out again, returning instantly with another cry of
'Beef, no vedge.' He was out and in again with a cry of 'Pork and
vedge,' and out and in again with a cry of 'Pork, no vedge.' Then a
shock-headed youth appeared with a basket foil of tin measures and a
big can of black beer. He was met with an instant storm of chaff, and
allusions of a Rabelaisian sort were made to one Mary for whom he would
seem to have had a kindness. He departing, the men set themselves to the
serious business of dinner, and, the meal being over, they gathered into
groups, and smoked and talked, whilst the small boy cleared away.

An aproned man in a very old skull cap of black silk, and a shabby
frock-coat like Mr. Warr's, approached Paul and announced himself as
'the Father of the Chapel.' He welcomed the young man with a curious
formal courtesy, and aired scraps of Latin with which Paul was familiar
from many years of study of the specimen-books of the type-founders,
who used to exhibit the most exquisite specimens of the printers' art in
quotations from Cicero. Mr. Warr borrowed sixpence on the plea of sudden
and severe internal pains, and went out to varnish the work of art. He
returned with a moist eye, and in the course of the afternoon twice or
thrice dipped his bulbous nose into the letter 'e' box, and snored for a
minute at a time among the typ