London to John O 1 Groat's. 89 



man's forehead, however business affairs may go with 

 him outside, No one is in a hurry to sit down or to 

 arise from the table. The whole economy of the esta- 

 blishment is to make you as much at home as possible ; 

 to individualise you, as far as it can be done, in every 

 department of personal comfort. You follow your own 

 time and inclination, and eat and drink when and how 

 you please, with others or alone. The congregate sys- 

 tem is the exception, not the rule. It seldom ever 

 obtains at breakfast or tea. In many cases you have a 

 little round table all to yourself at these meals. But 

 if there is a common table for half a dozen persons, the 

 tea and toast and other eatables are never aggregated 

 into a common stock. Each person, if he is a single 

 guest, has his own allotment, even to a separate teapot. 

 The table d'hote, if there be one at all, is made up like 

 a select dinner party, rather early in the morning. If 

 the guests of the house are not directly invited, they 

 are asked, in a tone of hospitality, if they will join in 

 the social meal, the only one got up by the establish- 

 ment at which the table is not mapped out into separate 

 holdings, or little independencies of dishes, each bounded 

 by the wants and capacities of the individual occupant. 

 The presiding and working faculty of a common 

 English inn distinguishes it by another salient cha- 

 racteristic from the hotels of other countries. The 



