Page:Hopkinson Smith--In Dickens's London.djvu/133

COVENT GARDEN MARKET leading any waiter astray, but I, too, had reached my "feeding time," and so, the sketch being finished, I thanked Bobby for his courtesy, added another coin of the realm to the grocer's hoard, restrapped my easel, and made my way to the "Tavistock," where I was regaled with a mug and a chop, and under the same roof and perhaps on the very seat once occupied by Sir Peter Lely, Kneller, and Thornhill, in the days when:

"Priests sipped coffee and sparks and poets tea." 79