Misson, speaking of coffee-houses, says: 'These Houses, which are very numerous in London, are extreamly convenient. You have all Manner of News there: You have a good Fire, which you may sit by as long as you please; You have a Dish of Coffee, you meet your Friends for the Transaction of Business, and all for a Penny, if you don't Care to spend more.' Yes, that was all--anybody, decently dressed, might have all this accommodation for _One Penny_. 'Laying down my Penny upon the Bar,' writes Addison,[294] and 'so briefly deposited my Copper at the Bar,' says Brown, show that the _habitués_ spent no more; and Steele, in the first number of the _Tatler_, speaking of the expenses attending the production of the paper, says: 'I once more desire my readers to consider, that as I cannot keep an ingenious man to go daily to Will's under two pence each day, merely for his charges; to White's under sixpence; nor to the Grecian, without allowing him some plain Spanish (snuff) to be as able as others at the learned table,' etc. [Footnote 294: _Spectator_, No. 31.] A man with leisure got rid of some hours daily at the coffee-house, or houses, and such a one would spend from 10 A.M. till noon, and again, after his two-o'clock dinner, would be there from 4 to 6, when he would leave for the theatre, or his turn in the park. The illustration gives us an excellent idea of the interior of a coffee-house, and its domestic economy--the _dame de comptoir_, the roaring fire with its perpetual supply of hot water, and its coffee and tea pots set close by, so as to be kept warm, and the very plain tables and stools, show the accommodation that was required, and accepted, by the very plain-living people of that day. A coffee-house is necessarily a _pièce de résistance_ with Ward. He describes it graphically, though somewhat roughly, and he brings the scene of the interior vividly before our eyes. 'Come, says my Friend, let us step into this Coffee House here; as you are a Stranger in the Town, it will afford you some Diversion. Accordingly in we went, where a parcel of Muddling _Muckworms_ were as busy as so many _Rats_ in an old _Cheese Loft_; some Going, some Coming, some Scribling, some Talking, some Drinking, some Smoaking, others Jangling; and the whole Room stinking of Tobacco, like a Dutch Scoot or a Boatswain's Cabbin. The Walls being hung with Gilt Frames, as a Farriers shop with Horse shooes; which contain'd abundance of Rarities, viz. Nectar and Ambrosia, May Dew, Golden Elixirs, Popular Pills, Liquid Snuff, Beautifying Waters, Dentifrisis, Drops, Lozenges, all as infallible as the Pope, Where every one above the rest Deservedly has gain'd the Name of Best (as the famous _Saffold_ has it).'