Grimaldi nodded his entire assent, and they went in and ordered some bread and cheese, and beer. Having taken the edge off their hunger, they tossed up a farthing which Grimaldi happened to find in the corner of some theretofore undiscovered pocket, to determine who should present the "sixpence." The chance falling on himself, he walked up to the bar, and with a very lofty air, and laying the questionable metal down with a dignity quite his own, requested the landlord to take the bill out of that. "Just right, sir," said the landlord, looking at the strange face that his customer assumed, and not at the sixpence. "It's right, sir, is it?" asked Grimaldi, sternly. "Quite," answered the landlord; "thank ye, gentlemen." And with this he slipped the--whatever it was--into his pocket. Gomery looked at Grimaldi, and Grimaldi, with a look and air which baffle all description, walked out of the house, followed by his friend. "I never knew anything so lucky," he said, as they walked home to supper--"it was quite a Providence--that sixpence." "A piece of tin, you mean," said Gomery. Which of the two it was, is uncertain, but Grimaldi often patronised the same house afterwards, and as he never heard anything more about the matter, he felt quite convinced that it was a real good sixpence. In the early part of the year 1794, they quitted their lodgings in Great Wild-street, and took a six-roomed house, in Penton-place, Pentonville, with a garden attached; a part of this they let off to a Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, who then belonged to Sadler's Wells; and in this manner they lived for three years, during the whole of which period his salaries steadily rose in amount, and he began to consider himself quite independent. At Easter,[18] Sadler's Wells opened as usual, and making a great hit in a new part, his fame rapidly increased. At this time he found a new acquaintance, which exercised a material influence upon his comfort and happiness for many years. The intimacy commenced thus:--