I sold my matches well that day. I got fourpence for two and sixpence for two, and I bought myself a hunch of bread and cheese and a cup of coffee at a Lockhart’s. The food is very good in these establishments, much better and cheaper than at far more imposing places. It is a question, as Bernard Shaw said years ago, of whether you prefer nine-pennyworth of tablecloth and three-pennyworth of food for your shilling, or vice versa. The service is negligible at Lockhart’s, and the table implements are not at all refined, but your food and drink are both steaming hot, and the company has a rough and ready humour which gives salt to the poorest meal.

I had a conversation with the manageress as to the chances of engaging me as cook. There might, she thought, be a vacancy for a washer-up, but in the higher walks of domestic economy there was nothing doing; it was a matter of a reference once again.