Waiter

“ All this time, the other waiter looks at you—with an air of mental comparison and curiosity, now, as if it had occurred to him that you are rather like his brother. Half your time gone, and nothing come but the jug of ale and the bread, you implore your waiter to ‘see after that cutlet, waiter; pray do!’ He cannot go at once, for he is carrying in seventeen pounds of American cheese for you to finish with, and a small Landed Estate of celery and water-cresses. ”

“ When our admirable waiter—who is also our best friend—frees his soul in song as he is setting the table, the walls of the dining-room quiver and vibrate. By five o'clock in the morning every one except ourselves is on foot and out of doors. ”

“ The table at which the waiter is occupied is a long one, set across the terrace with covers and chairs for five, two at each side and one at the end next the hotel. Against the parapet another table is prepared as a buffet to serve from. The waiter is a remarkable person in his way. A silky old man, white-haired and delicate looking, but so cheerful and contented that in his encouraging presence ambition stands rebuked as vulgarity, and imagination as treason to the abounding sufficiency and interest of the actual. ”

“ Next the apprentice waiter, promoted from assistant cook or scullion-boy, who carries on a conversation in signs behind your back with the waiter opposite him, smothering his laughter at intervals in the same napkin with which he wipes your plate, and who, when he changes a course, slants the dishes up his sleeve, keeping the top one in place with his chin, replacing the plates again with a wavy motion, as if they were so many quoits, each one circling into its place—a trick of which he is immensely proud. ”

“ I cannot dine on shining brown patties, composed of unknown animals within, and offering to my view the device of an indigestible star-fish in leaden pie-crust without. I cannot dine on a sandwich that has long been pining under an exhausted receiver. I cannot dine on barley-sugar. I cannot dine on Toffee.’ You repair to the nearest hotel, and arrive, agitated, in the coffee-room.
It is a most astonishing fact that the waiter is very cold to you. Account for it how you may, smooth it over how you will, you cannot deny that he is cold to you. ”

“ The same waiters, too, hurry about—they live on for centuries—wearing the same coats and neckties, and carrying the same napkins. I myself have never seen a dead waiter, and, now I happen to think of it, I have never heard of one. ”

“ These waiters are certainly ubiquitous; at the table there is one at each elbow, at night a stranger is escorted to bed by a grand procession, and one pulls off his boots while another unbuttons his shirt-collar, and a third lights the gas and turns down the bed-clothes; a waiter meets you at the door, another takes away your overcoat and gives it to a waiter who presents you with a brass check for it—there are waiters in the bar, in the washroom, in the barber-shop, in the cellar, in the reading-room; waiters running races through the halls all night ”

“ No head waiter met them. In fact they were almost knocked down by a hurrying waiter, carrying a tray of dishes; a short-haired, broken-nosed individual; a one-time artist in the manly art of scrambling ears.
It was warm up there amid all those smells. The tall man led the girl to a vacant booth, which an anemic-looking waiter was cleaning up, and they sat down opposite each other. The tall man had placed his suitcase beside the entrance, where he could watch it. ”

“ The spirit of the place steals over you. On entering, with a quarter of an hour to spare, your idea was a cutlet and a glass of claret. In the face of the refreshment-room waiter, the notion appears frivolous, not to say un-English. You order cold beef and pickles, with a pint of bitter in a tankard. To win the British waiter’s approval, you must always order beer in a tankard. The British waiter, in his ideals, is mediæval. ”

“ When we order a specially prepared dinner, with our suggestions as to its composition and service, we tip the head waiter, the chef, the waiter and the bus boy. We have given dinners where the tips amounted to fully half as much as the dinner itself, and we felt that this part of the expense brought us the greatest pleasure.
It is impossible to make a hard and fast rule regarding how much to give a waiter. Each person must use his or her own judgment. ”

“ A fat, perspiring waiter—why do waiters always perspire?—had just carried in from a neighboring cafe a large tray bearing a tea-pot, a jug of hot water, plate of sandwiches, ditto of cute little cakes, and all the various accessories of tea-making and drinking. ”

“ Here waiter; I say waiter!"
"Yes, sir, yes, sir."
"Well, why don't you come when I call," said Mick with a consequential air. "I have been hallooing these ten minutes. Couple of glasses of bar mixture for these ladies and go of gin for myself. And I say waiter, stop, stop, don't be in such a deuced hurry; do you think folks can drink without eating;—sausages for three; and damme, take care they are not burnt." ”

“ The slowest waiter I know is the British railway refreshment-room waiter. His very breathing, regular, harmonious, penetrating, instinct as it is with all the better attributes of a well-preserved grandfather’s clock, conveys suggestion of dignity and peace. ”

“ There the waiter who ought to wait upon us had set forth our knives and forks and glasses, on the cloth whose dirty acquaintance we had already had the pleasure of making, and which we were pleased to recognise by the familiar expression of its stains. And now there occurred the truly surprising phenomenon, that the waiter who ought not to wait upon us swooped down upon us, clutched our loaf of bread, and vanished with the same. ”

“ It is not correct taste to know the name of a club waiter, so I must apologise for knowing William's, and still more for not forgetting it. If, again, to speak of a waiter is bad form, to speak bitterly is the comic degree of it. But William has disappointed me sorely. There were years when I would defer dining several minutes that he might wait on me. His pains to reserve the window-seat for me were perfectly satisfactory. ”

“ The waiter recites the bill of fare in a rather confidential manner—for he is a regular customer—and after inquiring ‘What’s in the best cut?’ and ‘What was up last?’ he orders a small plate of roast beef, with greens, and half-a-pint of porter. He has a small plate to-day, because greens are a penny more than potatoes, and he had ‘two breads’ yesterday, with the additional enormity of ‘a cheese’ the day before. This important point settled, he hangs up his hat—he took it off the moment he sat down—and bespeaks the paper after the next gentleman. ”

“ As I followed the chief waiter with my eyes, I could not help thinking that the garden in which he had gradually blown to be the flower he was, was an arduous place to rise in. It had such a prescriptive, stiff-necked, long-established, solemn, elderly air. I glanced about the room, which had had its sanded floor sanded, no doubt, in exactly the same manner when the chief waiter was a boy—if he ever was a boy, which appeared improbable; and at the shining tables, where I saw myself reflected, in unruffled depths of old mahogany; and at the lamps, without a flaw in their trimming or cleaning; ”

“ Suppose you sit down to a well-furnished table at a hotel to eat your dinner. The waiter hands you a bill of fare, upon which is printed a long list of good and wholesome dishes, and then quietly waits until you order what you wish. You are not expected to eat of every one, however attractive they may be, but rather to select what you like best,—enough to make a modest meal,—and let that suffice. ”

“ Fortunate now are the owners of cold beverages, for none but a fire-eater could swallow the scalding potations that are now left as perquisites to the waiter. Amid the babel of departure may be distinguished, ‘Please remember the waiter, sir!’ ‘Didn’t take for your dinner, sir.’ ‘Glass of brandy, ma’am.’ ‘A basin of soup and a pint of ale gone away without paying!’ ‘Chambermaid, ma’am.’ ‘Ostler, sir! ”

“ When you are through, you rise and prepare to get out. The waiter stops you with an obsequious smile in which there is much determination, and remarks, “the waiter!” You are made to understand that he expects a shilling. ”

“ This maligns the individual waiter, of course; the man who is used to attending on you, who knows your likes and dislikes, and takes a personal interest in your contentment, [Pg 191] but it is fairly typical of the average restaurant waiter who sees you for the first time and thinks you just one of the ordinary mob. For the casual customer is the facile dupe of the waiter. He comes, he orders his dinner, or preferably, permits it to be ordered for him, pays his bill, and goes away. ”

“ Four or five waiters are able to attend to the wants of a hundred or more men during the course of an hour. The waiters work like madmen during the rush hours, speeding in with orders, out with dirty dishes. During the course of this hour a waiter becomes literally plastered with splashes of coffee, gravy, and soup. The uncleanliness is revolting and the waiters are no less shocking than the cooks and dishwashers. In the kitchens uncleanliness reaches its limit. ”

“ You should leave it to your guests alone to approve, or suffer one of your intimate friends who is present, to vaunt your wine.
If you ask the waiter for anything, you will be careful to speak to him gently in the tone of request, and not of command. To speak to a waiter in a driving manner will create, among well-bred people, the suspicion that you were sometime a servant yourself, and are putting on airs at the thought of your promotion. ”

“ So I orders the brand of dinner the waiter hints I ought to have,—little necks, okra soup, broiled lobster, guinea hen, and so on, with a large bottle of fizz decoratin’ the silver tub on the side and some sporty lookin’ mineral for me. It don’t make any diff’rence whether you’ve got a wealthy water thirst or not, when you go to one of them tootsy palaces you might just as well name your vintage first as last; for any cheap skates of suds consumers is apt to find that the waiter’s made a mistake and their table has been reserved for someone else. ”

“ Customer (indignantly) . Hi! waiter, what do you call this soup?
Waiter (meekly) . I not know, sir, but ze padrone tell me to describe 'im cocks-tail!
"The Coming Man."—A waiter.
[Pg 17]
So very Conscientious!—Master of the House. "Why, Jenkins, what on earth is the matter with you? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
Butler (with great deliberation) , "Well, shir—if you pleashe, shir—itsh not quite my fault. You told me to taste every bottle of wine before dinner, in cashe one should be corked. I've only carried out in-shtrucshuns."
[Pg 18]
THE VERB TO DINE Present Tense
I dine. ”

“ Leete. "The waiters are young men in the unclassified grade of the industrial army who are assignable to all sorts of miscellaneous occupations not requiring special skill. Waiting on table is one of these, and every young recruit is given a taste of it. I myself served as a waiter for several months in this very dining-house some forty years ago. Once more you must remember that there is recognized no sort of difference between the dignity of the different sorts of work required by the nation. ”

“ They are hired to wait upon the guests, and it is no affair of those guests how they feel, as long as they discharge their duty. To reprove a waiter is the height of ill-breeding.
Do not, when a dish is brought to you, say you prefer to be helped after some one else. Accept or refuse what is offered to you, and let the waiter pass the dish on. A gentleman, however, will see that the lady he has escorted to the table is helped as she wishes, before he attends to his own dinner, but to interfere with the lady on the other side of him is all insult to her escort. ”

“ It is usual at a hotel-table for each waiter to have charge of three or four persons, and to attend to their wants exclusively. If you are a stranger, ask the waiter his name when he first comes to you; and unless he is not at hand, and you see another standing idle, do not call on any one else to attend you.
If the servants are coloured men, refrain from all conversation in their presence that may grate harshly on their feelings, by reminding them of their unfortunate African blood. ”

“ A few afternoons since, he came in, as usual, with his waiter, to carry the supper to the sick men (those unable to leave their beds) in his ward. I noticed, as I arranged the plates for him, that he looked much disturbed, and that his hand trembled.
“King,” said I, “you are hardly strong enough yet to carry that waiter; you should ask one of the other orderlies to do it for you.” ”

“ Here, Waiter! (Waiter presents a carte, and stands by with a proud humility.) Now, what are you going to have? (To Guest.) You don't mind? I hate to hear a man say he doesn't care what he eats—he ought to care, he must care. What do you say to this—"Potage Bisque d'écrivisses; Saumon Sauce Hollandaise; Brimborions de veau farcis à l'imprévu; Ducklings and green peas; New Potatoes; Salad"? Simple and, ah, satisfying. (To Waiter.) Let us have that as sharp as you can; do you hear?
Waiter. Quick? ”

“ Every waiter furnished with a libretto, button-hole bouquets, full dress suits, theatre tickets, the latest tips, and his hair parted down the middle. Every guest will have the best seat in the dining hall, and the best waiter in the house. ”

“ It may not be generally known that the person as goes out to wait is not a Waiter. It may not be generally known that the hand as is called in extra, at the Freemasons’ Tavern, or the London, or the Albion, or otherwise, is not a Waiter. Such hands may be took on for Public Dinners by the bushel (and you may know them by their breathing with difficulty when in attendance, and taking away the bottle ere yet it is half out) ”