and loss account of
fish and sixpences adjusted, to the satisfaction of all parties, Mr. Bob Sawyer
rang for supper, and the visitors squeezed themselves into corners while it was
getting ready.
    It was not so easily got ready as some people may imagine. First of all, it
was necessary to awaken the girl, who had fallen asleep with her face on the
kitchen table; this took a little time, and, even when she did answer the bell,
another quarter of an hour was consumed in fruitless endeavours to impart to her
a faint and distant glimmering of reason. The man to whom the order for the
oysters had been sent, had not been told to open them; it is a very difficult
thing to open an oyster with a limp knife or a two-pronged fork; and very little
was done in this way. Very little of the beef was done either; and the ham
(which was also from the German-sausage shop round the corner) was in a similar
predicament. However, there was plenty of porter in a tin can; and the cheese
went a great way, for it was very strong. So upon the whole, perhaps, the supper
was quite as good as such matters usually are.
    After supper, another jug of punch was put upon the table, together with a
paper of cigars, and a couple of bottles of spirits. Then, there was an awful
pause; and this awful pause was occasioned by a very common occurrence in this
sort of places, but a very embarrassing one notwithstanding.
    The fact is, the girl was washing the glasses. The establishment boasted
four; we do not record the circumstance as at all derogatory to Mrs. Raddle, for
there never was a lodging-house yet, that was not short of glasses. The
landlady's glasses were little thin blown glass tumblers, and those which had
been borrowed from the public-house were great, dropsical, bloated articles,
each supported on a huge gouty leg. This would have been in itself sufficient to
have possessed the company with the real state of affairs; but the young woman
of all work had prevented the possibility of any misconception arising in the
mind of any gentleman upon the subject, by forcibly dragging every man's glass
away, long before he had finished his beer, and audibly stating, despite the
winks and interruptions of Mr. Bob Sawyer, that it was to be conveyed down
stairs, and washed forthwith.
    It is a very ill wind that blows nobody any good. The prim man in the cloth
boots, who had been