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PDFJuly 17 Postcards and stamps
| | 9
pencil
| | 1
Warwick
Castle | 2 | —
cider
at the Bear and Baculus | |
(which
Mifflin would call the | |
Bear
and Bacillus) | | 21/2
Bowling
Green Inn, bed and | |
breakfast
| 3 | 2
Puncture
| 1 | —
Lunch,
Kenilworth | 1 | 6
Kenilworth
Castle | | 6
Postcards
| | 4
Lemonade,
Coventry | | 4
Cider
| | 21/2
Supper,
Tamworth, The Castle Hotel | 2 |
1
____
_____ _____
|
16 | 51/2
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!”
