Time-tables in gilt-stamped covers strewed the tables; wine lists stood on edge; a card of the local omnibus to the station was stuck up where all could see it; the daily papers hung over the arm of a cosy chair; the furniture was new; the whole place, it must be owned, extremely comfortable and the service good.
But it was town and not country--to-day and not the olden time; and I did not feel courage enough to ask for the book.

I believe I should have left the place without mentioning it, but, fortunately looking round the room while the lunch was prepared, I found it in the bookcase, where there was a strange mixture of the modern and antique.
I took down the history from between Rich's thin grey 'Ruins of Babylon' and a yellow-bound railway novel.
Towards the close of the eighteenth century a learned gentleman had taken much pains to gather together this account of the town.

He began with the story of Brutus, and showed that one of the monarchs descended from the illustrious Trojan founded a city here.

Some fossil shells, indeed, that had been dug up furnished him with conclusive proof that the Deluge had not left the site uncovered, since no how else could they have got there: an argument commonly accepted in his day.

Thus he commenced, like the monks themselves, with the beginning of the world; but then came a wide gap down to Domesday Book.