"but as you did not come, I put the dinner
back."

"It was very kind of you, I'm sure," I said.

"Oh, not at all," she protested. "Would I
take my pudding before my meat or after?
Yorkshire fashion was to take it before the
meat."

I said I would take it Yorkshire fashion, for
I loved the Yorkshire fashions.

"Had I seen Polson lately?" my host asked.

"Yes, I had seen him last week."

"Still at the old shop, I suppose?"

"Yes," I said, "he was still at the old shop."

"And what was he doing. Still at the old
game?"

"Yes," I said, "still at the old game."

And so the dinner passed pleasantly away.
When we were sitting over our wine, my host
said: "I have invited a few friends to meet you
this evening. All, people that you know. Marsh
and his wife, Dawson and his wife, Partridge
and his wife. Old Cockle is coming, too—you
remember old Cockle, of course?"

I said that it was very kind of him, that I
should be very glad to meet so many persons
that I knew, and that I particularly remembered
old Cockle. I firmly believed at the moment
that I did know all these people, and when they
came I recognised them all on the instant.
Looking round the table, at the "tea fight"
(which was a pleasant Yorkshire meal of tea,
coffee, fish, roast fowls, and buttered cakes),
every face that I saw was familiar to me, so was
every voice I heard. Shutting my eyes, I knew
them all by their speech. I heard old Cockle
incidentally mention that he had never been in
London. Until this day I had never been in
Leeds. Yet I knew old Cockle, and old Cockle
knew me. This is not a story that begins
with an indigestion and ends with that most
unsatisfactory disillusive device, "a wild and
troubled dream." It is a simple fact that I am
relating. For two days I found myself in a
strange town, which I had never visited before,
in the midst of familiar faces and old friends,
who entertained me hospitably, and paid me
every attention. First, one old friend and then
another old friend conducted me over the
town to view the lions of Leeds. They are not
many, and they are not imposing. They roar
a good deal like sucking doves. It is a dingy
sombre town, marred by the workhouse order
of architecture and ugly-coloured bricks. It
struck, me as strange that a town which
produces such fine soft glossy cloth, should
be itself so rusty and threadbare. The town-hall
is a magnificent building, perhaps the
handsomest town-hall in the kingdom; but it is
too fine for the town. It stands like an
exquisite marble statue in the midst of a builder's
lumber-yard. Briggate, the principal commercial
street, is a sort of two-storied Tottenham court
road. The woollen mills give you the wild idea
of houses suffering from jaundice. All the goods
sold in the shops seem to be soft goods. I
wanted a penknife, and searched three streets in
vain for a cutler's. I entered, at last, a shop
that had a slight look of hardware, and when
I asked for a penknife, they tried to put me off
with a woollen comforter. In the end, the shop-boy
was sent out to procure the article I wanted,
and he was so long absent that I think he must
have gone to Sheffield for it.

I was much struck with the paucity of
public-houses—good phrase that "paucity of
public-houses"—in Leeds. I congratulated my guide
on the pleasing fact, as being a testimony to the
temperate habits of the people. I regret to say
that he could not accept my congratulations.
He let me into a secret. The public-houses in
Leeds are mostly situated up courts. There is
no sign of them in the main streets; but if you
go up the courts, there you find them. And
every street was pierced with these sly little
courts, like rabbit-holes in a sand-bank.

The young ladies in Leeds are all in the
fashion; but they overdo the thing a little.
Their chignons are nearly as big as their heads,
so that they appear when in the streets to have
two heads, one with a hat and one without.

I found at a public office an old friend—whom
I had never seen before in my life—who had
made arrangements to conduct me over a
woollen mill. One proprietor refused to admit
me, having a strong suspicion that it was my
design to take the pattern of his new machinery.
Another made me welcome, and showed me
everything. The history of a yard of doeskin
would fill a volume, so I cannot even attempt to
summarise it. From the sheep's back to the final
rolling of it up in a bale, it goes through a score
of elaborate processes, and changes its appearance
every time. It is always going into a
machine, or a tub, or a boiler, and coming out—
like a comic entertainer—in a new form. It
is torn to pieces by the "devil," and spun and
twisted, and teazled, and boiled, and dyed, and
pummelled, and shaved, and hot pressed, and I
don't know what all. The adventures of a pair
of sixteen-shilling trousers would beat the
exploits of the seven-leagued boots all to nothing.

A word as to shoddy. I thought it was a
term of reproach, a thing to be ashamed of, a
sly dodgement of the duffer. But Leeds is not
ashamed of shoddy, it talks about it openly,
uses it openly. What is shoddy?

I was not quite clear on this point before I
went to Leeds, but I know all about it now,
and will give others the benefit of my newly
acquired useful knowledge. Shoddy is old wool
made as good as new. Every manufacturer
keeps a devil, a ravenous beast with a fearful
set of iron teeth, and an insatiable appetite for
old coats and old trousers, old anything that is
made of wool. Toss him an old garment, and
he will tear it to pieces in no time. The spun
and woven threads are converted into wool
again, and are worked up into new threads to be
woven once more into a piece of cloth. Cloth
so made—with a mixture of new wool—looks
very well and wears very well. I defy you to
tell which is shoddy cloth and which is not. We
all wear shoddy without knowing it. For light
wear, shoddy cloth will serve every purpose;