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17 Heriot Row
by
July 18 Johnson house, Lichfield | | 3
cider at The Three Crowns | | 4
postcard and shave | | 4
The King’s Head, bed and breakfast | 3 | 7
cider | | 2
tip on road[A] | | 11/2
lunch, Uttoxeter | 1 | 3
cider, Ashbourne, The Green | |
Man | | 3
landlord’s drink, Ashbourne[B] | | 1
supper, Newhaven House, | 1 | –
lemonade, Buxton | | 3
_____________
TOTAL L1 4 1
($5.78)
[Footnote A: As far as I can remember, this was a gratuity to a rather tarnished subject who directed us at a fork in the road, near a railway crossing.]
[Footnote B: This was a copper well lavished; for the publican, a ventripotent person with a liquid and glamorous brown eye, told us excellent gossip about Dr. Johnson and George Eliot, both heroes in that neighbourhood. “Yes,” we said, “that man Eliot was a great writer,” and he agreed.]
That is to say, 24 bob for two and a half days. We used to reckon that ten shillings a day would do us very nicely, barring luxuries and emergencies. We attained a zealous proficiency in reckoning shillings and pence, and our fervour in posting our ledgers would have gladdened a firm of auditors. I remember lying on the coping of a stone bridge over the water of Teviot near Hawick, admiring the green-brown tint of the swift stream bickering over the stones. Mifflin was writing busily in his notebook on the other side of the bridge. I thought to myself, “Bless the lad, he’s jotting down some picturesque notes of something that has struck his romantic eye.” And just then he spoke–“Four and eleven pence half-penny so far to-day!”