and embellishmentsunconsciously began to sit for MrsPipchin in Dombey
(a) when she took me in.
'She had a little brother and sister under he care then; somebodys natural
childrenwho were very irregularly paid for; and a widow's little son. The
two boys and I slept in the same room. My own exclusive breakfastof a
penny cottage loaf and a penny worth of milk, I provided for myself. I kept
another small loaf, and a quarter of a pound of cheese, on a particular
shelf of a particular cupboard; to make my supper when I came back at
night. They made a whole in the six of seven shillingsI know well; and I
was out at the blackingwarehouse all day, and had to support myself upon
that money all week. I suppose my lodging was paid for, by my father, I
certainly did not pay it myself; and I certainly had no other assistance
whatever (the making of my clothes, I think, excepted)from Monday morning
till Saturday night. No advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no
consolationno support, from any one that I can call to mind, so help me
God.
1SundaysFanny and I, passed in the prison. I was at the academy in
Tenterden Street, Hanover Square, at nine o'clock in the morning to fetch
her; and we walked back there together at night.'
'I was so young and childish, and so little qualified - how could I be
otherwise? - to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that, in
going to Hungerford Stairs of a morning, I could not resist the stale
pastry put out at a half-price on trays at the confectioners' doors in
Tottenham Court Road; and I often spent in that, the money I should have
kept for my dinner. Then I went without my dinner, or bought a roll, or a
slice of pudding. There were two pudding shop between which I was divided,
according to my finances. One was in a court close to St.Martin's Church
(at the back of the church) which is now removed altogether. The pudding of
that shop was made with currantsand was a rather special pudding, but was
dear: to penn 'orth not being larger than a penn 'orth of a more ordinary
pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand, somewhere near where
the Lowcher Arcade is now. It was a stout hale pudding, heavy and flabby,
with great raisins in it, stuck in whole, at great distances apart. It came
up hot, at about noon every day; and many and many a day did I dine off it.
1We had a half an hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough, I used
to go to a coffee-shop, and have half-a-pint of coffee, and a slice of
bread and butter. When I had no money, I took a turn in Covent Garden
market, and stared at the pine-applesThe coffee-shops to which 1 most
resorted were, one in Maiden Lane; one in a court (non-existent now) close
to Hungerford Market; and one in St.Martin's Lane, of which I only
recollect that it stood near the church, and that in the door there was an
oval glass-plate, with COFFEE-ROOM painted on it, addressed towards the
street. If 1 ever find myself "We had half an hour, I think, for tea. When
I had money enough, I used to go to a coffee-shop, and have half-a-pint of
in a very different kind of coffee-room now, but where is such an
inscription on glass, and read it backward on the wrong side MOOR EEFFOC
(as I often used to do then, in a dismal reverie)a shock goes through my
blood.
I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally the
scantiness of my resources and the difficulties of my life. I know that if
Dombey and Son ch. 8.
