Somebodys Luggage | Page 5

mind be, if you was one of an enormous family every member
of which except you was always greedy, and in a hurry. Put it to
yourself that you was regularly replete with animal food at the slack
hours of one in the day and again at nine p.m., and that the repleter you
was, the more voracious all your fellow-creatures came in. Put it to
yourself that it was your business, when your digestion was well on, to
take a personal interest and sympathy in a hundred gentlemen fresh and
fresh (say, for the sake of argument, only a hundred), whose
imaginations was given up to grease and fat and gravy and melted
butter, and abandoned to questioning you about cuts of this, and dishes
of that,--each of 'em going on as if him and you and the bill of fare was
alone in the world. Then look what you are expected to know. You are
never out, but they seem to think you regularly attend everywhere.
"What's this, Christopher, that I hear about the smashed Excursion
Train? How are they doing at the Italian Opera, Christopher?"
"Christopher, what are the real particulars of this business at the
Yorkshire Bank?" Similarly a ministry gives me more trouble than it
gives the Queen. As to Lord Palmerston, the constant and wearing
connection into which I have been brought with his lordship during the
last few years is deserving of a pension. Then look at the Hypocrites we
are made, and the lies (white, I hope) that are forced upon us! Why
must a sedentary-pursuited Waiter be considered to be a judge of
horseflesh, and to have a most tremendous interest in horse-training
and racing? Yet it would be half our little incomes out of our pockets if
we didn't take on to have those sporting tastes. It is the same

(inconceivable why!) with Farming. Shooting, equally so. I am sure
that so regular as the months of August, September, and October come
round, I am ashamed of myself in my own private bosom for the way in
which I make believe to care whether or not the grouse is strong on the
wing (much their wings, or drumsticks either, signifies to me,
uncooked!), and whether the partridges is plentiful among the turnips,
and whether the pheasants is shy or bold, or anything else you please to
mention. Yet you may see me, or any other Waiter of my standing,
holding on by the back of the box, and leaning over a gentleman with
his purse out and his bill before him, discussing these points in a
confidential tone of voice, as if my happiness in life entirely depended
on 'em.
I have mentioned our little incomes. Look at the most unreasonable
point of all, and the point on which the greatest injustice is done us!
Whether it is owing to our always carrying so much change in our
right-hand trousers-pocket, and so many halfpence in our coat- tails, or
whether it is human nature (which I were loth to believe), what is
meant by the everlasting fable that Head Waiters is rich? How did that
fable get into circulation? Who first put it about, and what are the facts
to establish the unblushing statement? Come forth, thou slanderer, and
refer the public to the Waiter's will in Doctors' Commons supporting
thy malignant hiss! Yet this is so commonly dwelt upon--especially by
the screws who give Waiters the least--that denial is vain; and we are
obliged, for our credit's sake, to carry our heads as if we were going
into a business, when of the two we are much more likely to go into a
union. There was formerly a screw as frequented the Slamjam ere yet
the present writer had quitted that establishment on a question of
tea-ing his assistant staff out of his own pocket, which screw carried the
taunt to its bitterest height. Never soaring above threepence, and as
often as not grovelling on the earth a penny lower, he yet represented
the present writer as a large holder of Consols, a lender of money on
mortgage, a Capitalist. He has been overheard to dilate to other
customers on the allegation that the present writer put out thousands of
pounds at interest in Distilleries and Breweries. "Well, Christopher," he
would say (having grovelled his lowest on the earth, half a moment
before), "looking out for a House to open, eh? Can't find a business to
be disposed of on a scale as is up to your resources, humph?" To such a

dizzy precipice of falsehood has this misrepresentation taken wing, that
the well-known and highly-respected OLD CHARLES, long eminent at
the West Country Hotel, and by some considered the Father of the
Waitering, found himself under the obligation to fall