But he was afraid.
"You've escaped this time," said the drapery of her muslins as she swam
from his sight. "But no nonsense while I'm away!"
When she sternly and mutely thrust the refection before him, he found
that everything on the table except the tea-cakes and the spoon was
growing elm-trees.
After one cup and one slice, when the tea had become stewed and
undrinkable, and the tea-cake a material suitable for the manufacture of
shooting boots, he resumed, at any rate partially, his presence of mind,
and remembered that he had done nothing positively criminal in entering
the boudoir or drawing-room and requesting food in return for money.
Besides, the gentlewomen were now pretending to each other that he did
not exist, and no other rash persons had been driven by hunger into the
virgin forest of elm-trees. He began to meditate, and his meditations
taking--for him--an unusual turn, caused him surreptitiously to examine
Henry Leek's pocket-book (previously only known to him by sight). He had
not for many years troubled himself concerning money, but the discovery
that, when he had paid for the deposit of luggage at the cloak-room, a
solitary sovereign rested in the pocket of Leek's trousers, had
suggested to him that it would be advisable sooner or later to consider
the financial aspect of existence.
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