He
availed himself largely indeed of the resources of Pratt's Hotel,
beginning his day with an early visit to his fellow travellers, who
had Mr. Pratt in person, in a large bulging white waistcoat, to remove
their dishcovers. Ralph turned up, as he said, after breakfast, and
the little party made out a scheme of entertainment for the day. As
London wears in the month of September a face blank but for its smears
of prior service, the young man, who occasionally took an apologetic
tone, was obliged to remind his companion, to Miss Stackpole's high
derision, that there wasn't a creature in town.
"I suppose you mean the aristocracy are absent," Henrietta answered;
"but I don't think you could have a better proof that if they were
absent altogether they wouldn't be missed. It seems to me the place is
about as full as it can be. There's no one here, of course, but
three or four millions of people. What is it you call them- the
lower-middle class? They're only the population of London, and
that's of no consequence."
Ralph declared that for him the aristocracy left no void that Miss
Stackpole herself didn't fill, and that a more contented man was
nowhere at that moment to be found.
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