Porter (worker)

“ Nay, what is very surprising is, that the man sometimes called portier, who sits in a little chamber at the door, has often a better acquaintance with English than even landlord or waiter. This porter or, as he is more correctly designated, concierge, is attached to all large hotels, and his ostensible duty is not that of carrying luggage (for which business there are men of a different stamp under him) , but consists in keeping the keys of the rooms, attending to letters, and answering inquiries. In reality he is a man of superior intelligence, and acts often as the interpreter of the house ”

“ When they arrived at the office the porter said a few words to the clerk, and the latter returned the well-dressed man his money, telling him to go elsewhere for a bed. There were very few lodgers in the house that did not know the meaning of this injustice. The well-dressed man was a gentleman, and, in spite of his low circumstances, did not forget it. He looked on the porters as his servants and, when he met them in the street, never invited them to have a drink. Again, there was no necessity for him to rise early, whereas the bully gave a porter sixpence a week to be called every morning. ”

“ That's something I always try to do, Monsieur Portier, before I let myself in for a big proposition; and I meant this to be big, all right. I wanted to see if that cold cream seemed as good after twenty-four hours as it did at first. Well, it did, and then some! So I got the Swede porter at my hotel, who can talk some English, to go back with me. And I started in to ask the old fellow all about it. Right there I struck a difference. After the way I'd gone on, an American, when I went back the next day, would have been wondering what I was trying to take away from him ”

“ Naturally the porter that understands his business and gives his whole attention to the passengers in his car and to his work, will make more money than the porter who has not the patience to try and please his passengers. ”

“ When a traveler wishes his bed made up he should summon the porter and so declare. Usually an electric bell between the windows of his section will enable him to call the porter at any time. If the traveler is a woman and is for any reason dissatisfied with her berth or section, she may consult with the [273] porter about a change which, if the car is not full, he is often able to arrange for her. For instance, if a woman having a lower section finds that the upper is to be occupied by a man, it is often possible, by the payment of a small sum to the porter, to move her quarters. ”

“ The difference between a porter and a porter in charge is that a porter generally has a car over which a Pullman conductor presides, which the porter in charge owing to his long service and his knowledge of the business is placed in full charge of a car, making the services of a Pullman conductor unnecessary. A porter in the employ of the Pullman company for ten years and giving good service for that time receives from the company two suits of clothes per year, and other privileges not enjoyed by the beginner. ”

“ Those of the town folk who saw Porter the day he packed up his other shirt and collar and marched defiantly into exile remarked on his changed appearance on his return. The hair that fringes the new bald spot on top of his head is gray, he has become exaggeratedly round shouldered, and he can’t see without the aid of thick lensed glasses. ”

“ III.—The Porter.
I had intended to have written, this week about "Loggosh"—including that mysterious canvass hand-box which contains all that a foreigner cares to carry about with him by day, and often pillows him when travelling by night; but the very mention of luggage brings me back to the Porter. I abominate him. I am "one who has suffered." So here goes!
"Imposing," best describes the Hôtel porter; a very Grand Hôtel has at least two of these impositions—the House Porter and the Omnibus Porter. ”

“ Porter, with dignity.
“All our things went, bit by bit,” pursued his wife, “all the money we had put by for a rainy day, and we ’ad to begin all over again. What are we going to live on? O’ course, you might earn something by singing in the street; people who like funny faces might give you something! Why not go upstairs and put your ’ead under the bed-clothes and practise a bit?”
Mr. Porter coughed. “It’ll be all right,” he said, confidently. “Our committee knows what it’s about; Bert Robinson is one of the best speakers I’ve ever ’eard. ”

“ Porter was immoderately addicted both to wine and women, but was nevertheless industrious, quick, and well acquainted with all the forms of the court, and his ‘speech was prompt and articulate.’ He began with drawing pleas, then practised at the bar, and soon had a great deal of business. Lord-keeper Guilford took notice of him; but his good fortune had a hard struggle with his dissipated habits, and he was always in debt. ”

“ I go out—to find the sympathetic Porter. My baggage has arrived? It has; it is at the Douane, waiting for me. I am saved! I tell the Waiter, without elation, but with what, I trust, is a calm dignity—the dignity of a man who has been misunderstood, but would scorn to resent it.
At the Station.—I have accompanied the Porter to the Terminus, such a pleasant helpful fellow, so intelligent! The Ostend streets much less dull at night. Feel relieved, in charity with all the world, now that my prodigal portmanteau is safely reclaimed. Porter takes me into a large luggage-room. ”

“ Had he come with a portmanteau—even with a carpet-bag—the porter's service would have been no evidence of rank; but accustomed as she was chiefly to gentlemen engaged in commercial pursuits, it was new to her experience,—a gentleman with effects so light, and hands so aristocratically helpless. ”

“ The house was very still. In the little room over the porch the Lady in Black sat alone. Near her a child's white dress lay across a chair, and on the floor at her feet a tiny pair of shoes, stubbed at the toes, lay where an apparently hasty hand had thrown them. A doll, head downward, hung over a chair-back, and a toy soldier with drawn sword dominated the little stand by the bed. And everywhere was silence—the peculiar silence that comes only to a room where the clock has ceased to tick.
The clock—such a foolish little clock of filigree gilt—stood on the shelf at the foot of the bed ”

“ As sways her gait I smile at hips so big * And weep to see the waist they bear so slight.
When the Porter looked upon her his wits were waylaid, and his senses were stormed so that his crate went nigh to fall from his head, and he said to himself, "Never have I in my life seen a day more blessed than this day!" Then quoth the lady portress to the lady cateress, "Come in from the gate and relieve this poor man of his load." ”

“ The proud porter emerged like a conquering hero from the lodge, the pleated kilt of the McTavish tartan swinging against his great thighs, his knees bare and glowing in the sun, and the jaunty Highland bonnet low upon the side of his head. He approached the gate and began to parley, but not with the chauffeur; a more important person (if possible) had descended from the car—a person of unguessable age, owing to automobile goggles, dressed in a London-made shooting suit of tweed, and a cap to match. The parley ended, the stranger appeared to place something in the proud porter's hand ”

“ One day the porter, who lived in a little den at the bottom of the lodging-house staircase, suddenly missed the familiar figure which had gone by his rabbit-hutch every day for the last six years; the besotted face that had stared at him morning and evening with the blank, unseeing gaze of the habitual drunkard.
"What has become of the old toper who lives up yonder among the chimney-pots?" cried the porter, suddenly, to the wife of his bosom. "I have not seen him to-day nor yesterday, nor for many days. He must be ill. I will go upstairs and make inquiries by-and-by, when I have leisure." ”

“ A sign said to get the porter to let you into the upper berths. The porter might be a cousin of some of them gulch niggers, he thought suddenly; he might ask him if he had any cousins around Eastrod, or maybe just in Tennessee. He went down the aisle, looking for him. They might have a little conversation before he got in the berth. The porter was not at that end of the car and he went back to look at the other end. Going around the corner he ran into something heavily pink; it gasped and muttered, "clumsy!" It was Mrs. Hosen in a pink wrapper with her hair in knots around her head. ”

“ Esta es la vida, bebamos mas. The curtain falls with Porter’s eyes riveted upon the bottle.
23 ACT II. Scene: the drug-store, as in Act I.
At rise: the time is early evening, and Porter is percolating his own paregoric and rolling his own pills; he works silently and steadily.
Al Jennings (appears in doorway at left; a wiry little man, wearing the uniform of a first-class prisoner—grey, with black stripes on trouser seams; vivid red hair and a temper to correspond; warmhearted to his friends, a trouble to his enemies) : Bill.
Porter (turns and stares) : Why, Colonel! You’re out of the hole! ”

“ But here comes the porter to break up our housekeeping! I do hope I am going to remember to do all the things Mrs. O'Shea told me to do and to leave undone all the things she told me not to do about sleeping cars. I can't help thinking it would be better if the porter would take those little hammocks that he hangs up next the windows and that it would be truly cruel to put babies in because they would always be bumping against the wall, and stretch them across the aisles to catch the people, who must be always falling out of the upper berths. ”

“ PORTER, GEORGE RICHARDSON (1792–1852) , statistician, the son of a London merchant, was born in London in 1792. Failing in business as a sugar-broker, he devoted himself to economics and statistics, and in 1831 contributed an essay on life assurance to Charles Knight's ‘Companion to the Almanac.’ When, in 1832, Knight declined Lord Auckland's invitation to digest for the board of trade the information contained in the parliamentary reports and papers, he recommended Porter for the task. ”

“ The staggering thought of what the loss of my bag meant to me put my finger on the bell and kept it there until the porter came.
“Did you ring, sir?” he asked, poking his head through the curtains obsequiously. McKnight objects that nobody can poke his head through a curtain and be obsequious. But Pullman porters can and do.
“No,” I snapped. “It rang itself. What in thunder do you mean by exchanging my valise for this one? You’ll have to find it if you waken the entire car to do it. There are important papers in that grip.”
“Porter,” called a feminine voice from an upper berth near-by. ”

“ Then a porter, once a black-haired, brawny Breton peasant in the ever-lasting blue blouse, swings a trunk upon his shoulder, gathers up in one hand all the umbrellas and bags, which it took four of us to bring, and the concierge, from her own little den at the foot of the staircase, hands forth our keys with a smile that is purely French and means nothing, yet says plainer than words that she has been longing all day for our coming, and is so relieved that we are safely arrived at last. ”

“ Phil asked indignantly.
"I ain't overly certain as to what they'll say; but you can set it down as a fact that never a mother's son of 'em will so much as open his mouth where there's a chance his words may be repeated aft. Captain Porter ain't the kind of a seaman that a crew can afford to monkey with. He'll do as he believes right, no matter what them as sail under him may say." ”

“ A practical man—I took him for one, who had struck oil—was leaving the hotel. A porter, assuming an expectant air, takes up a position at the door of the hotel. The practical man addresses him in a firm tone, ‘Now, sir, tell me everything, you have done for me beyond your duty to the hotel.’ A look of blankness comes over the porter’s face, and he steps aside. The practical man, with the look of one who has discharged a lofty duty, steps into his carriage. ”

“ It did not enter into our minds to ask the porter about the appearance of the man whom we had followed the whole time."
"But the large hand-bag?"
"Well, he let that remain in the carriage, and gave the coachman orders to take it back to his lodgings early to-day. I got hold of the driver at last, and heard how all had happened. He himself thought it was a little strange that the man should disguise himself during the drive; but as far as I could understand, he was a little tipsy on this occasion, and as he got two kroners as a tip he presumed it was no business of his. ”

“ The porter followed us, crying that the dog had lamed him, and that he would compel us to make compensation. The people rose in tumult; and we arrived at the Pension Suisse with twenty porters before us, and a rabble of two hundred behind.
"It cost us forty francs for our portmanteaus, umbrellas, and canes, and ten francs for the bitten leg.1 In all, fifty francs for about fifty steps."—P. 59.
This was on his landing at Livorno: on his departure he gives us an account, equally graphic, of the vetturini:—
"A diligence is a creature that leaves at a fixed hour, and its passengers run to it ”

“ A boat for the latter place left Portobello each day at two o'clock. A Rathmines man, who was owner and driver of a covered car, was returning home one morning about 11 o'clock, when he was hailed, in Dame Street, by a respectably dressed man, who engaged him to drive about town, and to be paid by the hour. The hirer stopped at several establishments and bought parcels of woollen, linen, plaid, and cotton goods, as also a hat and a pair of boots, for all of which he paid in cash. There was merely room for the hirer in the vehicle along with his ample purchases. ”