Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller

who was startled by the bill of fare, and sat contemplating it as

if it were something of a ghostly nature. The decision of the boys

was as rapid as their execution, and always included pudding.

There were several women among the diners, and several clerks and

shopmen. There were carpenters and painters from the neighbouring

buildings under repair, and there were nautical men, and there

were, as one diner observed to me, ‘some of most sorts.’ Some were

solitary, some came two together, some dined in parties of three or

four, or six. The latter talked together, but assuredly no one was

louder than at my club in Pall-Mall. One young fellow whistled in

rather a shrill manner while he waited for his dinner, but I was

gratified to observe that he did so in evident defiance of my

Uncommercial individuality. Quite agreeing with him, on

consideration, that I had no business to be there, unless I dined

like the rest, ‘I went in,’ as the phrase is, for fourpencehalfpenny.

The room of the fourpence-halfpenny banquet had, like the lower

room, a counter in it, on which were ranged a great number of cold

portions ready for distribution. Behind this counter, the fragrant

soup was steaming in deep cans, and the best-cooked of potatoes

were fished out of similar receptacles. Nothing to eat was touched

with his hand. Every waitress had her own tables to attend to. As

soon as she saw a new customer seat himself at one of her tables,

she took from the counter all his dinner – his soup, potatoes,

meat, and pudding – piled it up dexterously in her two hands, set

it before him, and took his ticket. This serving of the whole

dinner at once, had been found greatly to simplify the business of

attendance, and was also popular with the customers: who were thus

enabled to vary the meal by varying the routine of dishes:

beginning with soup-to-day, putting soup in the middle to-morrow,

putting soup at the end the day after to-morrow, and ringing

similar changes on meat and pudding. The rapidity with which every

new-comer got served, was remarkable; and the dexterity with which

the waitresses (quite new to the art a month before) discharged

their duty, was as agreeable to see, as the neat smartness with

which they wore their dress and had dressed their hair.

If I seldom saw better waiting, so I certainly never ate better

meat, potatoes, or pudding. And the soup was an honest and stout

soup, with rice and barley in it, and ‘little matters for the teeth

to touch,’ as had been observed to me by my friend below stairs

already quoted. The dinner-service, too, was neither conspicuously

hideous for High Art nor for Low Art, but was of a pleasant and

pure appearance. Concerning the viands and their cookery, one last

remark. I dined at my club in Pall-Mall aforesaid, a few days

afterwards, for exactly twelve times the money, and not half as

well.

The company thickened after one o’clock struck, and changed pretty

quickly. Although experience of the place had been so recently

attainable, and although there was still considerable curiosity out

in the street and about the entrance, the general tone was as good

as could be, and the customers fell easily into the ways of the

place. It was clear to me, however, that they were there to have

what they paid for, and to be on an independent footing. To the

best of my judgment, they might be patronised out of the building

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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller

in a month. With judicious visiting, and by dint of being

questioned, read to, and talked at, they might even be got rid of

(for the next quarter of a century) in half the time.

This disinterested and wise movement is fraught with so many

wholesome changes in the lives of the working people, and with so

much good in the way of overcoming that suspicion which our own

unconscious impertinence has engendered, that it is scarcely

gracious to criticise details as yet; the rather, because it is

indisputable that the managers of the Whitechapel establishment

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