Grudden remained behind to take some cold Irish stew and a pint of
porter in the box-office.

Mrs Crummles trod the pavement as if she were going to immediate
execution with an animating consciousness of innocence, and that heroic
fortitude which virtue alone inspires. Mr Crummles, on the other hand,
assumed the look and gait of a hardened despot; but they both attracted
some notice from many of the passers-by, and when they heard a whisper
of 'Mr and Mrs Crummles!' or saw a little boy run back to stare them in
the face, the severe expression of their countenances relaxed, for they
felt it was popularity.

Mr Crummles lived in St Thomas's Street, at the house of one Bulph, a
pilot, who sported a boat-green door, with window-frames of the same
colour, and had the little finger of a drowned man on his parlour
mantelshelf, with other maritime and natural curiosities. He displayed
also a brass knocker, a brass plate, and a brass bell-handle, all very
bright and shining; and had a mast, with a vane on the top of it, in his
back yard.

'You are welcome,' said Mrs Crummles, turning round to Nicholas when
they reached the bow-windowed front room on the first floor.

Nicholas bowed his acknowledgments, and was unfeignedly glad to see the
cloth laid.

'We have but a shoulder of mutton with onion sauce,' said Mrs Crummles,
in the same charnel-house voice; 'but such as our dinner is, we beg you
to partake of it.'