When we were brought our safer refection, we noted her activities
to the hostess, and she said, "Yes, they all want a bit of cake
with their tea, even the poorest"; and when we ventured our
supposition that they made their afternoon tea the last meal of
the day, she laughed at the notion. "Last meal! They have a good
supper before they go to bed. Indeed, they all want their four
meals a day."
Another time, thriftily running in a third-class carriage from
Crewe to Chester, I was joined by a friendly man who addressed me
with the frank cordiality of the lower classes in recognizing one
of their sort. "They don't know how to charge!" he said, with an
irony that referred to the fourpence he had been obliged to pay
for a cup of station tea; and when I tried to allege some
mitigating facts in behalf of the company, he readily became
autobiographical. The transition from tea to eating generally was
easy, and he told me that he was a plumber, going to do a job of
work at Llandudno, where he had to pay fourteen bob, which I knew
to be shillings and mentally translated into $3.
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