n, whoever he is."

So in we go, and all sodden and bedrabbled as we were, went to follow
the drawer upstairs, when the landlady cried out she would not have us
go into her Cherry room in that pickle, to soil her best furniture and
disgrace her house, and bade the fellow carry us into the kitchen to
take off our cloaks and change our boots for slip-shoes, adding that if
we had any respect for ourselves, we should trim our hair and wash the
grime off our faces. So we enter the kitchen, nothing loath, where a
couple of pullets browning on the spit, kettles bubbling on the fire,
and a pasty drawing from the oven, filled the air with delicious odours
that nearly drove us mad for envy; and to think that these good things
were to tempt the appetite of some one who never hungered, while we,
famishing for want, had not even a crust to appease our cravings! But it
was some comfort to plunge our blue, numbed fingers into a tub of hot
water and feel the life blood creeping back into our hearts. The paint
we had put on our cheeks the night before was streaked all over our
faces by the snow, so that we did look the veriest scarecrows
imaginable; but after washing our heads well and stroking our hair into
order with a comb Mistress Cook lent us, we looked not so bad. And thus
changed, and with dry shoes to our feet, we at length went upstairs, all
full of wondering expectation, and were led into the Cherry room, which
seemed to us a very palace, being lit with half a dozen candles (and
they of wax) and filled with a warm glow by the blazing logs on the
hearth reflected in the cherry hangings. And there in the midst was a
table laid for supper with a wondrous white cloth, glasses to drink
from, and silver forks all set out most bravely.

"His worship will be down ere long," says the drawer, and with that he
makes a pretence of building up the fire, being warned thereto very like
by the landlady, with an eye to the safety of her silver.

"Can you tell me his worship's name, friend?" I whispered, my mind
turning at once to his worship of Tottenham Cross.

"Not I, were you to pay me," says he. "'Tis that outlandish and
uncommon. But for sure he is some great foreign grandee."

He could tell us no more, so we stood there all together, wondering,
till presently the door opens, and a tall, lean gentleman enters, with a
high front, very finely dressed in linen stockings, a long-waisted coat,
and embroidered waistcoat, and rich lace at hi