Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/17

Rh could not quite make out her argument, but that was what it came to so far as I could understand. I wished myself that there was a little more fun about. I was tired of the drapery.

“Shivering!” said Tom. “I’m not only shivering; I’m hungry too. Boiled mutton days I always am.”

“Hungry!” I cried. “I’m starving. I’ve had no dinner or tea, and I’m ready to drop.”

“No! You don’t mean that?”

I did mean it, and so I told him. What with having had nothing to eat, and being tired, and worried, and cold, it was all I could do to drag one foot after another. I just felt as if I was going to be ill. I could have kept on crying all the time.

“Have either of you got any money?” asked Tom. Neither Emily nor I had a penny. “Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do; we’ll all three of us go into Firandolo’s, and I’ll stand Sam.”

I knew he had only enough money to take him home on Sunday, because he had told me so himself the day before. Cardew & Slaughter’s is not the sort of place where they encourage you to spend Sunday in. He had been in last Sunday; and to stop in two Sundays running was to get yourself disliked; I have spent many a Sunday, loitering about the parks and the streets, living on a couple of buns, rather than go in to what they called dinner. And I knew that if we once set foot in Firandolo’s we should spend all he had. Yet I was so faint and hungry that I did not want much pressing. I could not find it in my heart to refuse.

Firandolo’s is something like a restaurant. Including vegetables, and sweets, and cheese, I have counted sixty-seven dishes on the bill of fare at one time, so that you have plenty of choice. For a shilling you can get a perfectly splendid dinner. And for sixpence you can get soup, and bread and cheese