behind the china shop, and there would speak the thoughts that
oppressed him.

"It isn't that I've any quarrel with the foreign rest'rants, Louisa.
They're all right in their way. They suit a certain public, and they
charge certain prices. But what I do think is mean and low--mean and
low--is to be neither one thing nor the other; to make a sort of
show as if you was 'igh-clawss, and then have it known as you're the
cheapest of the cheap. Potatoes! That I should live to see Chaffey's
'anding out such potatoes! They're more like food for pigs, and I've
known the day when Chaffey's 'ud have thrown 'em at the 'ead of
anybody as delivered 'em such offal. It isn't a place for a
self-respecting man, and I feel it more and more. If a shop-boy
wants to take out his sweetheart and make a pretence of doing it
grand, where does he go to? Why, to Chaffey's. He couldn't afford a
real rest'rant; but Chaffey's looks the same, and Chaffey's is
cheap. To hear 'em ordering roast fowl and Camumbeer cheese to
follow--it fair sickens me. Roast fowl! a old 'en as wouldn't be
good enough for a real rest'rant to make inter soup! And the
Camumbeer! I've got my private idea, Louisa, about what that
Camumbeer is made of. And when I think of the Cheshire and the
Cheddar we used to top up with! It's 'art-breaking."

From a speaker with such a countenance all this was very impressive.
Mrs. Clover shook her head and wondered what England was coming to.
In return she would tell of the people who came to her shop to hire
cups and saucers just to make a show when they had a friend to tea
with them. There was much of the right spirit in both these persons,
for they sincerely despised shams, though they were not above
profiting by the snobberies of others. But Mrs. Clover found