I then told Steerforth that my aunt was in town awaiting me (as I found from her letter), and that she had taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel at Lincoln's
Inn Fields, where there was a stone staircase, and a convenient door in the roof; my aunt being firmly persuaded that every house in London was going to be burnt down every night.
I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the
inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow--a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white.
One evening, coming back to his
inn, he found Babcock waiting for him in the little garden beside it.
Seven years before, he had seriously answered, "Next month, I think," to the chaffing attempt to secure his custom made by that distinguished local wit, the Colebrook barber, who happened to be sit- ting insolently in the tap-room of the New
Inn near the harbour, where the captain had entered to buy an ounce of tobacco.
The dinner, already ordered at the
inn, was at last, though unwillingly, accepted as a excuse; but they seemed almost hurt that Captain Wentworth should have brought any such party to Lyme, without considering it as a thing of course that they should dine with them.
Neighbors, always invited to Prior's Park on such occasions, went back to their own houses in motors or on foot; the legal and archeoological gentleman had returned to the
Inns of Court by a late train, to get a paper called for during his consultation with his client; and most of the other guests were drifting and lingering at various stages on their way up to bed.
Being a hardened reporter, and it being apparently a public
inn, I did not need to summon much of my impudence to sit down at the long table and order some cider.
He met the fox, who gave him the good advice: but when he came to the two
inns, his eldest brother was standing at the window where the merrymaking was, and called to him to come in; and he could not withstand the temptation, but went in, and forgot the golden bird and his country in the same manner.
This had gone on for a month or two when there came a Saturday in September, on which a fair and a market coincided; and the pilgrims from Trantridge sought double delights at the
inns on that account.
All the unowned dogs who stray into the
Inns of Court and pant about staircases and other dry places seeking water give short howls of aggravation.
There are other
inns that thou knowest yet, hereabouts.
Decent, respectable Scotchwomen who keep
inns," interposed Geoffrey, "don't cotton to young ladies who are traveling alone.
