Well, when I got down, as I said before, we were all just on the move, (business hours being from nine till six in our office,) taking down coats and hats, and clearing desks for the night, so I just sidled up to Jem Fisher, and little Neddy Baily, who are the two I like best, and told them to come up to my room to supper at eight o’clock, which they of course were very glad to promise to do, and then I went off to get ready for them.
Jem Fisher and I are very fond of a dish which I believe very few of you ever heard of. One Sunday in May, a year or two back, he and I had been down beyond Notting Hill, listening to the nightingales; and coming back, we walked through Kensington Gardens, and came out at the gate into the Notting Hill Road, close to Hyde Park. We were late, for us, so we hailed a ’bus, and got on the box. The driver was full of talk about all the fine people he had been seeing walking in the gardens that afternoon, and seemed to think it hard he couldn’t enjoy himself just as they did. “However, gentlemen,” said he at last, “there’s some things as the haristocracy ain’t alive to. Did you ever eat cow-heel?” Perhaps Jem, who had all his best clothes on, didn’t mind being taken for one of the aristocracy; at least just for a minute, for he’s too good a fellow to like being taken for anybody but himself when he comes to think of it; at any rate, he and I took to eating cow-heel from that time. So the first thing I did, after going home and locking up most of my money, and speaking to my landlady, who is the best old soul alive if you take her in her own way, was, to set off to Clare Market, and buy some cow-heel and sausages; and on my way back through the Turnstile, I thought, as it was so hot, I would have some fruit too; so I bought a pottle of plums and a piece of a pine-apple, and got home.
They came in sharp to time, and I and my landlady had every thing ready, and two foaming pewter pots full of bitter beer and porter. So we had a capital supper, and then cleared it all away, and sat down to eat the fruit and have a quiet pipe by the time it began to get dark.
“And so,” said little Neddy, (he is only just eighteen, and hasn’t been in our office a year yet; but he’s such a clever, industrious little chap, that he has gone over the heads of half a dozen of our youngsters, and hasn’t stopped yet by a long way,) “you’re off on the 15th! wish I was. Well, here’s luck any how,” said he, nodding to me, and taking a bite out of a slice of pine-apple.