Читать книгу A Search for America - Frederick Philip Grove - Страница 7

Table of Contents

When, carrying my aprons and jackets in a small suitcase, I entered Johnson's Café at ten o'clock sharp on Tuesday morning, the first person whom I caught sight of was Mr. Carlton. Not a flicker in his bespectacled grey eyes betrayed that he had any knowledge of myself beyond having hired me as that impersonal neuter thing called help. A curt, almost severe nod in answer to my "Good morning, sir," and a sign with his finger to follow him; that was all.

He led me through the front-room, along the pastry counter, and to the left of the steps, where, under the orchestra platform, he opened an exceedingly low door, pointed down to a pitchdark staircase, and said, "You will find the lavatory and the locker-room down there. Your number is sixty-four. Hang your things in the locker, get ready, and report."

With these words which were spoken in a cool, matter-of-fact tone, he left me.

I had to bend very low in order to climb down the stairs and to reach an excessively dirty subterranean room. It was lighted by a number of electric lights which seemed dim because their bulbs were covered with thick dust and bespattered with mud whose origin seemed inexplicable. An inexpressibly fetid smell pervaded the atmosphere. To the concrete wall at the right four expensive white-tile washbasins were fastened, all of them having hot-and-

cold-water taps, and all of them in a state of utter neglect and dirt. Through the far wall led two swinging doors, one of them marked "Women", the other, left one, "Men". I picked my way across the litter of paper and matted, carpet-like dust. On entering the room behind, I caught sight of a long row of tall, narrow lockers to the left; to the right, of a partition which reached neither ceiling nor floor. From beyond this partition a confused noise of voices, laughter, squeaking or slamming locker-doors, and running feet, lifted itself, as it were, above a background of the general swish of female clothes. Through the opening between floor and partition I could see a great number of various-sized shoes moving and shuffling about. Several small boxes were lying on the floor. I noticed that, by pushing one of these to the partition and stepping on it, any one might peer into the girls' dressing-room. The litter on the floor and the dirt on the electric bulbs matched those in the front-room of this underground cave. There was not a window in the whole place. The air consequently was stifling, saturated with the odour of human sweat, foul with the exhalations of slow, dry decay.

With a movement of disgust I turned to the lockers, found number sixty-four with the key in the lock, hung my aprons and jackets inside, pitched the suitcases on top, and got ready. Then I hurried upstairs.

I saw Mr. Carlton standing by the booth and talking to the cashier. I went to the front and silently awaited his leisure. I felt immensely depressed.

When he saw me, he raised his finger and without a word led me back to the higher room in the rear.

A medium-sized young man in low-cut vest and dinner-coat, with a non-committal, clean-shaven, singularly empty face came to meet us. Mr. Carlton stopped.

"This is Branden," he said, "the new omnibus I told you about. You show him, Cox." He turned back to the front.

"Had your breakfast?" asked Cox, the head-waiter.

"No, sir."

He led me to the upper end of the room, where that space of the wall not taken up by the two swinging-doors was filled by eight tall, boiler-like nickel vessels with gas-flames underneath. Between them huge piles of heavy white earthenware cups and saucers rested on low tables.

Mr. Cox pointed to the four vessels at the left and said "Coffee"; to those at the right, and said, "Tea".

He turned to the table in the last right-hand stall and threw down a small pad of paper-slips which bore my number "64" printed on them.

"Your check-book," he said. "Whatever you order, you write out on one of the checks; then take it behind to the kitchen, get what you want, and hand the slip to the checker when you pass back into this room. Always enter the kitchen through this door and leave it through that one"--pointing to the right and to the left. "When your order is for yourself, you will write your number once more at the bottom of the check. You'll find butter in the ice-bowl." A nod of his head indicated where to look for it, on the lower shelf of one of the numerous dumbwaiters flanking the stalls. "When you have finished your breakfast, report. Better hurry up."

And he went.

I looked about. There was, in this upper room, a single, solitary customer still lingering over his breakfast. An enormously tall and big waitress with a good-natured, fresh fat face stood by his table--it was in one of the stalls on the right-hand side--and chatted with him in a friendly way.

I turned, took a cup and saucer, and helped myself to coffee from one of the faucets. It contained milk already mixed in. I should have enjoyed some oatmeal, but I did not like to enter the kitchen unattended. So I got some butter and sat down at the last table to the right to make a breakfast of coffee, butter and bread. The bread was good, the butter not bad; the coffee, thin and by no means of the best quality.

For a few minutes there did not seem to be a sound. As far as my eye could reach, the place was utterly deserted. Once more I looked back, around the corner of the stall-partition of green-stained oak, and I saw that the enormous girl was still standing by the table of the belated breakfast guest. She was giggling. I could not help smiling at this very picture of health, girlish silliness, and innocence. Considering what I had seen downstairs, I should not have expected anything as fresh and refreshing as that girl's face.

Suddenly there was a burst of laughter and noise from the lower room in front. I looked around the corner again and saw five or six young men passing up the lower aisle, along the counter. Somehow I was amazed when I realized that they made for the door to that evil-smelling hole below. If they were employees of the place, they certainly moved, to my European notion, in a remarkably free and easy way. They reached the door. There was something like an explosion of mirth among them. They had collided with a small young man who was just emerging from below. Their laughter and exclamations filled the place. Mr. Cox rose out of one of the stalls on my side and, apparently in silent protest, went towards the steps that led down into the front-room. The small young man was taking them at a bound. While doing so, he kept buttoning up his jacket; his apron-strings were still dangling loose.

"Hello, Cox," he sang out, in a cheerful and mocking voice. "Beautiful morning, isn't it?"

I could not hear whether or what Mr. Cox replied; but with the impulse to hurry up, I turned to my breakfast.

"Hello," the same pleasant voice sang out at my side. "New face?"

I looked up and smiled. He was tying his apron and seemed to be dancing about on his feet. He was indeed small though he might just pass as average, with a round, laughing face, neatly parted short, brown hair, and dancing eyes.

"Beats me where they get them," he went on. "Hello, Ella," for the girl was coming towards the table. "Hungry, Ella?" he asked in a bantering tone. "Sit down, girlie; entertain the guest. I'll get you some steak and French-fried potatoes."

"Shut up, Frank," Ella replied in a singularly high-pitched, childish voice and with a plaintive accent. "You make me tired. You know I never take any breakfast. A new one, you say?" And she turned to me with a look of scrutiny in her blue eyes. "Hello," she said and sank into the seat opposite my own.

"How do you do?" I answered, and added, "My name is Phil. I am the new omnibus."

For no reason that I could see she giggled. "Poor lamb," she said. "Where did Carlton pick you up, I wonder."

Frank was meanwhile dancing about, gathering up a small tray, fork, knife, spoon, and so on, and disappeared through the swinging door into the kitchen.

I smiled at the girl. She had won my entire confidence. "Green," I said. "Fresh from the other side."

She whistled. "Well, it beats everything, the way people leave a good thing when they've got it and flock into this land of milk and honey. What did you do? Kill somebody? Hold up a train? Dip into the cash-register?"

I laughed. "No," I said. "I wish I had; it would explain things. As it is, I have committed no crime beyond coming to the end of my resources."

She giggled again. "Lucky boy," she said.

"Lucky?" I asked, infected by her mirth.

"Sure," she replied; "I never had any resources to come to the end of. You look like a swell, too. I'm going to call you Slim, if you don't mind."

"Mind?" I said with a slight exaggeration of gallantry. "You may call your obedient servant whatever you please."

"Don't get fresh," she reproved with a touch of peevishness in her tone, while she was slowly getting up.

"Is he making love already, Ella?" asked Frank who at this moment burst out from the kitchen, with a violent kick against the swinging door from which a whiff of steam-laden air and the smell of cooking food reached me. "Always gaining admirers, are you?" And he vaulted into the seat behind her, instantly busying himself with the food on his tray.

"Silly," she said indifferently and stepped into the aisle, stretching herself. "Well, I guess I better polish my silver."

"Pewter," said Frank between mouthfuls. "Pewter you mean, or tin."

Cox, the head-waiter, appeared at our table. He looked at me. "Finished?" he asked as if he summoned me to follow him.

I rose in answer.

He pointed to the low dumbwaiters flanking the stalls on both sides of the room. "Watch those," he said. "Whenever there is a tray with soiled dishes, take it out to the kitchen. No tray must be left on the dumbwaiters. At noon, when the rush is on, you may put some over there." And he pointed to tall shelf-racks which stood, flanked by two hat-trees and umbrella-stands, in the space that separated the centre tables. There were eight of these in the upper room. "But always get them into the kitchen as fast as you can. I'll show you."

And he led the way to the right swinging door.

We entered a low-ceilinged room which was partitioned off to the left by a gigantic, many-shelved wire dish-rack which reached up to the dripping ceiling. The atmosphere was that of an overheated washroom. Steam seemed to ooze out from everywhere. Along the wall to the right there was, first, a large, low, table-top-like wire net, stretched so that it hardly sagged in the centre.

"Here you empty your tray," said Mr. Cox. "Never put it down. Never leave a tray in this room."

When we went on, a gaping chute for the left-overs came into view through the steam; beyond, two enormous, tin-lined vats were being filled with boiling water from two taps.

Two fat, Slavic-looking women were busy there. Both looked up as we passed, one with a brazen, one with a hunted look on her face. Their clothes were damp from the atmosphere. Unaccountably they fancied heavy, dark, woollen garments.

Beyond, we turned to the left, into a corridor along the gigantic dish-rack. We came to the kitchen. At the corner there was a tray-rack, now piled to the ceiling.

"Here you leave your trays," said Cox. "Pass out through that door as fast as you can. Never linger here."

This part of the room was also low-ceilinged; and the heavy odours of frying fat, boiling gravy, and cooking roasts filled the atmosphere in veritable layers. There was a long counter which separated what evidently was the waiters' corridor from the realm of the cooks. At the end of this counter, close to the door into the dining-room, was a boxlike seat for the checker. It was still empty.

Behind the counter there were four ranges, one beyond the other, each about twenty feet long. Maybe a dozen attendants were busy there. All of them were either naked down to their hips, or else wore nothing but a thin undershirt. Their lower bodies were hidden by greasy aprons.

One of the cooks, a tall, angular, gaunt, grey-haired, and grey-moustached man with an ugly gleam in his one eye--where the other eye should have been, was nothing but a raw-looking scar--came across and threw a sheet of soiled paper on the counter for Cox. He did not say a word but turned back to his range where he was basting a huge roast. Cox took the paper, and we passed on.

"Whenever you see that one of the waiters has two trays filled with orders, pick one of them up and follow him out. But never wait here during rush-hours. Your business is to keep the dumbwaiters clear. Never go down into the front-room. You want to know the waiters stationed there. They have their own helpers, plenty of them. There are only five waiters on the upper floor where you are to help. You want to find out who they are before the rush begins."

We stepped back into the dining-room.

A crowd had gathered at the table where I had taken my breakfast. They were engaged in a lively conversation, which stopped when Cox and I emerged. Curious looks appraised me. Several of the waiters passed without a word into the kitchen; two, a man and a girl, went across to the left-hand aisle and started to rattle about in the piles of knives and forks and spoons which filled the last two tables in the stalls. They filled their trays and went to the front.

Cox had been standing irresolutely for a moment. He did not seem to be the acme of efficiency. "Better help to lay the tables," he said and pointed after them. Then he went across to where Frank was still sitting and eating his breakfast.

I followed the man and the girl down the aisle. Each centre table took up as much floor-space as two stalls.

I passed Ella; then the girl in front of me stopped, and I passed her, following the man. He stopped at the third centre table, counting from the steps, put his tray down, and started to change the linen in the stalls to the left. The girl, whom I had passed, began to busy herself in a similar way.

I scanned the man rather carefully while I approached to offer my help. He was small, much smaller than Frank, and held himself very erect, with the rigidity of those who have been cruelly curtailed by Nature in the matter of size. He was at least fifty years old, grey-haired and grey-moustached, with an expression on his face as if he suffered from chronic indigestion and indignation.

"Anything I can help with?" I enquired with a smile and a nod.

He stopped in his work, straightened his back, stared at me, and snapped out, "You can take yourself off. When I need you, I'll call for you. Do you understand?"

"I understand that you are a cad, sir," I replied, turning.

Ella saw me. He had spoken without subduing his voice. Everybody, in fact, had turned and was grinning. Ella smiled and winked at me.

"Come here, Slim," she called. "Roddy doesn't like anybody to help him. It would reflect on his efficiency. Besides I've twice as many tables as he has."

I did as she wished me to. But in passing the intervening table, I caught a sharp look from the eye of the waitress there and heard a muttered, "Well, I declare."

"Roddy is mad," said Ella in a whisper when I reached her table. "He wants to be called Mr. Fields. Besides he can't stand tall people anyway. We call him Roddy; not because his name is Roderick, but because he is supposed to have swallowed a rod when he was a baby. If he hadn't, he could not hold himself so stiff." She giggled. "My," she sighed, "isn't it hot? Just watch. That's the way we lay out the plate. Now you start on that side over there."

I did so, moving noiselessly and quickly.

"Ain't it fierce?" she whispered after a minute or so, with a toss of her head in the direction of the kitchen.

"Frightful," I assented; then, "Mind giving me the names of the folks around here?"

"Not at all," she said. "You know Roddy and Frank and myself. The woman in front is Meg. Her name is Margaret Cox, you know. She is the wife of the head-waiter and thinks herself better than the rest of us. The girl behind is Iva. You're lucky if you ever get to see the natural skin of her face."

I shot a glance at her. "I have no ambition," I said. "Powder and paint are a blessing for some. Does she need them?"

Ella giggled again. "I dunno. I've never seen her without it. She's a good enough kid. But you want to act as if you were in love with her. Unless you would rather have her for an enemy."

Cox passed along through the aisle, throwing two bills-of-fare on each of the tables. They consisted of large, printed cards with a typewritten sheet attached on which the "Specials" were announced. One item caught my eye. I pointed it out and asked, "What is that?"

Ella bent over and read with an unmistakable effort.

"Oh," she said, "Chilly concarn. Can't be described; can only be tasted." Again she giggled.

Frank hurried by from the upper end of the room carrying a heavily loaded tray. "Of course," he found time to mock, "Ella's got him on her strings for keeps! How do you do it, girlie?" And he was gone.

Ella giggled. "Never mind him," she said. "Frank's a good kid. He's the best waiter in the place. We're awfully shorthanded. Harvest has begun in the West. That's why they've put us girls on for the day shift. When they can get all the help they want, nobody has more than one centre and two stalls. But Frank has always had two centres and two stalls. He'd quit if they gave him less. He makes an awful lot of money; they are very anxious to hold him. Well, now you know all you need to. The rest of the crowd, there's sixteen of them down there, you'll come to know by and by--Oh, Lordie!" she wailed suddenly, "can't those people wait till we're ready for them?"

She started to hurry in the most astonishing way for one as heavy as she was.

I looked around. Two customers were coming up the steps, and I caught a muffled hum from the lower front-room. People were beginning to fill the seats there. Waiters rushed past us in the direction of the kitchen. The change was so sudden that it was startling.

"Well, I declare! as our neighbour would say," I exclaimed.

"Oh, that's nothing yet," said Ella while she was rushing about. "You wait till an hour from now. Then it's hell, I can tell you. Hell!" She nearly screamed the last word out.

She ran away, with me staring after her, this time really startled by her expression.

I turned again and watched the glass-doors which did not come to rest any longer. People were pressing in, singly, in pairs, in groups--mostly men, a few girls, rarely a family, men and women, coming together. Soon the seats in the lower room were taken, and the overflow into the upper room began to gather volume. Humanity appeared in waves.

From the rear of the upper room another be-aproned and be-jacketed figure turned up, a man whom I had not seen so far. He was an old man who walked with a shuffling gait, as if his foot-joints were unable to move, a common ailment among old waiters, so common that it is called "waiter's foot". His face struck me as the coarsest thing I had ever seen in human expression. It was bony, with the eyes set deep in hollow sockets overarched by bushy, dirty-white eye-brows. His cheekbones were red and warty; the whole face framed by a straggling, grey beard. His lips were thin and dry, his nostrils dilated with exertion. His jacket and apron were not as spotlessly clean as those of the other attendants or mine. He carried on right hand and shoulder one of those large trays, loaded to capacity with four tiers of tumblers full of iced water, one on top of the other. Slowly, with the skill of a lifetime of practice, he deposited his tray on one side of the racks in the centre and started to distribute the tumblers in front of the ever farther advancing guests. I watched this old man with fascination.

But suddenly I was startled back into life by a snapping voice. Mr. Carlton was standing by my side.

"What are you waiting for?" he said. "Get busy! Get a tray with butter-chips."

His tone was such that I flashed around and should have flung him a sharp rejoinder, not being used to be ordered about. But I caught a humorous flicker in his steel-grey eyes; with a "Certainly, sir," and a grin I was off.

While I was putting squares of iced butter on chips and piling them on to the tray, the flood of customers overflowed to the kitchen-doors. These doors kept swinging now in a steady pulsation. The smell of food began to pervade the atmosphere. When I grasped my tray and started to wind my way through the human current, the electric fans overhead flashed into activity, emitting their purring sound; at the same moment the piano on the orchestra-platform started a maddening waltz.

Out of the crowd ahead Mr. Carlton emerged once more. I was holding the tray in front, my left hand supporting it from underneath, the right hand grasping one of the handles.

"Get that tray on the flat of your hand," the manager snapped in no amiable tone, the flicker behind his glasses again belying his gruffness. "Out of the way of the customers' heads." He gave it an upward swing which, I feared, would throw its load to the floor. "Put it down in front, on the first rack," he said. "Then get busy on the dumbwaiters. Hurry up!"

I rushed to the front.

"Bringing the butter?" the old man greeted me when I arrived at his side. "Just put it down. I'll attend to it."

He was wearing white canvas gloves on both his hands.

When I reached the first of the dumbwaiters, it was already piled high with soiled dishes. I was at a loss what to do. Frank was totalling up a check at the first side-table.

"Quick, Phil," he said. "Never mind about straightening them. Get them out of the way. I'll help you. There!"

It seemed to me that he was lifting half a universe on to my shoulders.

"I'm afraid," I gasped, intending to say that I did not think I could manage the load.

"Yes, you can," he said very quietly. "Off with you! Nothing to it!"

I was on my way. I went carefully, slowly; but at last I reached the kitchen. Fortunately Cox went through just ahead of me, kicking the door open with his foot, for he carried a similar load. If I had not been lucky in this, I should not have known how to get rid of the dishes. He never stopped but merely slanted the tray over the wire net, dropping its whole contents, or rather, letting it slide down while he went. Then he passed out beyond. My momentary hesitation had already caused a congestion behind; I was being hustled forward by shouts and curses from those who followed me. I did as he had done and went on, but not without looking back. There, from the door, a whole line of men with loaded trays passed in, apparently the helpers from the lower room. To the left, unencumbered waiters, checks in hand, slipped by and disappeared around the corner.

I hurried on myself, dropped the empty tray into its place, and was on the point of rushing out to the front when Ella, now flushed and perspiring, stopped me with a touch of her hand.

"Take this," she said, swinging a tray loaded with orders aloft, on to my left hand which I raised above my shoulder, and pressing a bundle of checks into my right.

I pushed on.

"Checks," the checker yelled; but, when I threw them down, he merely speared them on a spindle and waved me on without verifying what I carried.

The next moment Mr. Carlton had me in tow again.

"Whose order?"

"Ella's," I said.

"Here!" and with amazing agility he wound his way through the ever-thickening mass of humans which filled the aisle, waiting for seats to be vacated.

Ella's dumbwaiters were piled high. Mr. Carlton took one of the trays and pushed it on to a shelf in the rack in the centre. I deposited mine and was on the point of stepping over to the rack when Mr. Carlton's voice rang out again.

"Branden, here!"

He lifted another heavily loaded tray to my shoulder, thus clearing a second dumbwaiter for Ella who was just appearing through the crowd. When I passed her, I was struck by the expression of desperate, dumb determination about her set lips. There was little colour in her cheeks, and they were beady with perspiration.

When I reached the dish-rack in the wash-room, Mr. Carlton was following me, doing what I did, helping to get the dumbwaiters cleared. It put a certain exhilaration into my own endeavours to see that nobody considered anything below his dignity.

A small, very dapper and neat-looking man whom I had not seen before, wearing expensive but overdone clothes, flashed past me just as I was about to turn the corner into the kitchen. His command whipped out like a pistol-shot above the pandemonium of shouting voices and rattling dishes.

"No platters! Plates only!"

"Plates only," sang out the shrill, senile voice of the head-cook in verification of the order.

I learned later that this flashy little man of perhaps thirty years was Mr. Johnson, the owner of a chain of eating-places in the city.

Nobody stopped me this time in the narrow corridor between dish-rack and counter.

Behind the counter a casual observer would have seen half-naked maniacs dancing and jumping about in crazy lunacy. In the corridor, waiters were bustling each other, reaching up into the dish-rack, flinging plates on the counter and bellowing orders at the top of their voices. From out of the reeking pit behind me came yelling shouts, repeating every order that was given. Plates full of food were thrown back, on trays held by the waiters. The swinging doors in front kept opening and slamming shut in ever-accelerated pulsation. Whoever passed through gave them a vigorous kick. The checker stood on a chair behind his desk, roaring for checks, swinging his arms, jumping like one possessed; but in reality he did nothing but spear the checks on spindles, although he sometimes tried to keep up the pretence of verifying an order which passed out on a tray.

While I rushed to the front, I saw that Iva, the painted girl, was as badly off as the rest. Only Meg had her dumbwaiters always cleared whenever she needed them, and it struck me that neither I nor the old man had ever relieved her of a tray. "Oh," a thought flashed up, "she is Mrs. Cox!"

Mr. Carlton was everywhere. Here I saw him chatting with a customer as if he had all the time in the world; there he was taking an order for a waiter; and again he was carrying a heavily loaded tray to the rear.

Most of the waiters were themselves carrying trays now whenever they went to the kitchen. Everything was done in a rush; all movements had to be made through a crowd of people waiting for seats; nor were these people at all concerned about the convenience of the slaves that had to serve them.

For an hour and a half I kept it up at the same rate, now helping Frank, now Ella, now Roddy, to keep their dumbwaiters cleared. I stayed in the front of the room; there the crowd was thickest; partly in fulfilment of an unspoken agreement between myself and the old man who shared my task; he kept to the rear where he did not have to take quite so many steps in order to reach the kitchen. Occasionally, not being used to this pace, I felt like a drowning man, swamped under a crushing flood of humanity, more especially when the customers began to clamour for quicker service. Most of the diners, when giving their order, would add, "Rush that, please," as if the whole organization had not already been keyed up to the utmost in the line of rushing. Ella had been right. I could not have imagined anything more closely approaching to my conception of Hell on Earth than these noon-hours were for the waiters and their helpers. I wondered how the people could sit there, looking as if they were comfortable instead of jumping up and springing to our assistance. As for myself, even if I had been sitting there and giving orders instead of helping to fill them, the noise, and above all that demoniacal music would have inflicted exquisite torture on my nerves.

But when things seemed to come to a climax, when trays piled up in the racks, when nothing that I, the old man with the shuffling gait, and the waiters themselves could do in order to breast the avalanche of dishes that streamed from the kitchen, seemed to avail, when things seemed ready for a collapse or an explosion--then suddenly Mr. Carlton and even Mr. Johnson himself appeared, silently and quickly, or giving short, snapping orders; grabbing trays and carrying them to the kitchen, they would give a momentary relief and breathing space.

In the wash-room one of the foreign-looking women piled the soiled dishes into wire baskets suspended from a little wheel which ran on an overhead rail; when the baskets were filled, they swept through the first vat of boiling water, on, into the second vat, and over, in a dangerous-looking curve, to the dish-rack, where the other woman emptied them, leaving the dishes to be dried by a current of hot air and returning the baskets over the remainder of the overhead track to their starting-point.

By one o'clock the worst of the rush was over. By half past one the place began to look deserted. The waiters at the last tables, nearest the kitchen, were beginning to rest.

In surveying the room, I was struck as by the sight of a disaster. Every table-cloth was soiled; every shelf of the central racks and the dumbwaiters was piled with a jumble of dirty dishes. The atmosphere reeked with the smells of the kitchen. The battle was fought; we were left on the field.

I scanned the waiters' faces. Iva was grimy with a paste of sweat, paint, and dirt. Ella was pale, exhausted, transformed. Meg and Roddy looked grimly resigned. Frank was the only one who still smiled and danced about as if he had enjoyed himself hugely. He had been the only one, too, who, during that frightful hour of the midday-climax, had had time and energy left to exchange bantering talk with his customers. The others, when taking down orders, had looked as if they were peering down on the enemy in the trenches.

There is little else to be said about the first day. Towards evening there was another flood-tide of humanity. But with the specials--which were exhausted--the great attraction of the place was gone. The second tide was a neap-tide only. The customers had more time; the waiters did not rush about. Once more the place filled up when the theatres closed. Then gradually the work dwindled down to the waiting on an occasional customer only.

The night-clients came to spend money, not to save it. These belated diners, I found, were the ones on whom the waiters counted for their tips. The girls had gone off duty at eight o'clock; or the men might have fared badly; for, from the type that prevailed among these late-comers, I judged that they would have preferred to be looked after by members of the other sex.