She hurried back thence into the buttery, and came back once more with a delicately made glass, into which she put the flowers and set them down in the midst of our table.

One of the others, who had run off also, then came back with a big cabbage-leaf filled with strawberries, some of them barely ripe, and said as she set them on the table, "There, now; I thought of that before I got up this morning; but looking at the stranger here getting into your boat, Dick, put it out of my head; so that I was not before _all_ the blackbirds: however, there are a few about as good as you will get them anywhere in Hammersmith this morning." Robert patted her on the head in a friendly manner; and we fell to on our breakfast, which was simple enough, but most delicately cooked, and set on the table with much daintiness.

The bread was particularly good, and was of several different kinds, from the big, rather close, dark-coloured, sweet-tasting farmhouse loaf, which was most to my liking, to the thin pipe-stems of wheaten crust, such as I have eaten in Turin.
As I was putting the first mouthfuls into my mouth my eye caught a carved and gilded inscription on the panelling, behind what we should have called the High Table in an Oxford college hall, and a familiar name in it forced me to read it through.

Thus it ran: "_Guests and neighbours_, _on the site of this Guest-hall once stood the lecture-room of the Hammersmith Socialists_.

_Drink a glass to the memory_! _May 1962_." It is difficult to tell you how I felt as I read these words, and I suppose my face showed how much I was moved, for both my friends looked curiously at me, and there was silence between us for a little while.
Presently the weaver, who was scarcely so well mannered a man as the ferryman, said to me rather awkwardly: "Guest, we don't know what to call you: is there any indiscretion in asking you your name ?" "Well," said I, "I have some doubts about it myself; so suppose you call me Guest, which is a family name, you know, and add William to it if you please." Dick nodded kindly to me; but a shade of anxiousness passed over the weaver's face, and he said--"I hope you don't mind my asking, but would you tell me where you come from?
I am curious about such things for good reasons, literary reasons." Dick was clearly kicking him underneath the table; but he was not much abashed, and awaited my answer somewhat eagerly.