This change told grievously upon Mr. Sparkes.  At the first mention of it he determined to resign but the weakness in his character shrank from such a decided step, and he allowed himself to be drawn into a painfully false position.  The proprietor did not wish to lose him.  Mr. Sparkes was a slim, upright, grave-featured man, whose deportment had its market value; his side-whiskers and shaven lip gave him a decidedly clerical aspect, which, together with long experience and a certain austerity of command, well fitted him for superintending the younger waiters.  His salary was increased, his “tips” represented a much larger income than heretofore.  At the old Chaffey’s every diner gave him a penny, whilst at the new he often received twopence, and customers were much more numerous.  But every copper he pouched cost Mr. Sparkes a pang of humiliation; his “Thank you, sir,” had the urbanity which had become mechanical, but more often than not he sneered inwardly, despising himself and those upon whom he waited.

To one person alone did he exhibit all the bitterness of his feelings, and that was Mrs. Clover, the sister of his deceased wife.  With her he occasionally spent a Sunday evening in the parlour behind the china shop, and there would speak the thoughts that oppressed him.

“It isn’t that I’ve any quarrel with the foreign rest’rants, Louisa.  They’re all right in their way.  They suit a certain public, and they charge certain prices.  But what I do think is mean and low—­mean and low—­is to be neither one thing nor the other; to make a sort of show as if you was ’igh-clawss, and then have it known as you’re the cheapest of the cheap.  Potatoes!  That I should live to see Chaffey’s ’anding out such potatoes!  They’re more like food for pigs, and I’ve known the day when Chaffey’s ’ud have thrown ’em at the ’ead of anybody as delivered ’em such offal.  It isn’t a place for a self-respecting man, and I feel it more and more.  If a shop-boy wants to take out his sweetheart and make a pretence of doing it grand, where does he go to?  Why, to Chaffey’s.  He couldn’t afford a real rest’rant; but Chaffey’s looks the same, and Chaffey’s is cheap.  To hear ’em ordering roast fowl and Camumbeer cheese to follow—­it fair sickens me.  Roast fowl! a old ’en as wouldn’t be good enough for a real rest’rant to make inter soup!  And the Camumbeer!  I’ve got my private idea, Louisa, about what that Camumbeer is made of.  And when I think of the Cheshire and the Cheddar we used to top up with!  It’s ’art-breaking.”

From a speaker with such a countenance all this was very impressive.  Mrs. Clover shook her head and wondered what England was coming to.  In return she would tell of the people who came to her shop to hire cups and saucers just to make a show when they had a friend to tea with them.  There was much of the right spirit in both these persons, for they sincerely despised shams, though they were not above profiting by the snobberies of others.  But Mrs. Clover found amusement in the state of things, whereas Mr. Sparkes grew more despondent the more he talked, and always added with a doleful self-reproach: