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