of it comfortably, what do you say to giving the house the best
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opportunities of serving it hot and quickly by dining in the
coffee-room?’
What I had to say was, Certainly. Bullfinch (who is by nature of a
hopeful constitution) then began to babble of green geese. But I
checked him in that Falstaffian vein, urging considerations of time
and cookery.
In due sequence of events we drove up to the Temeraire, and
alighted. A youth in livery received us on the door-step. ‘Looks
well,’ said Bullfinch confidentially. And then aloud, ‘Coffeeroom!’
The youth in livery (now perceived to be mouldy) conducted us to
the desired haven, and was enjoined by Bullfinch to send the waiter
at once, as we wished to order a little dinner in an hour. Then
Bullfinch and I waited for the waiter, until, the waiter continuing
to wait in some unknown and invisible sphere of action, we rang for
the waiter; which ring produced the waiter, who announced himself
as not the waiter who ought to wait upon us, and who didn’t wait a
moment longer.
So Bullfinch approached the coffee-room door, and melodiously
pitching his voice into a bar where two young ladies were keeping
the books of the Temeraire, apologetically explained that we wished
to order a little dinner in an hour, and that we were debarred from
the execution of our inoffensive purpose by consignment to
solitude.
Hereupon one of the young ladies ran a bell, which reproduced – at
the bar this time – the waiter who was not the waiter who ought to
wait upon us; that extraordinary man, whose life seemed consumed in
waiting upon people to say that he wouldn’t wait upon them,
repeated his former protest with great indignation, and retired.
Bullfinch, with a fallen countenance, was about to say to me, ‘This
won’t do,’ when the waiter who ought to wait upon us left off
keeping us waiting at last. ‘Waiter,’ said Bullfinch piteously,
‘we have been a long time waiting.’ The waiter who ought to wait
upon us laid the blame upon the waiter who ought not to wait upon
us, and said it was all that waiter’s fault.
‘We wish,’ said Bullfinch, much depressed, ‘to order a little
dinner in an hour. What can we have?’
‘What would you like to have, gentlemen?’
Bullfinch, with extreme mournfulness of speech and action, and with
a forlorn old fly-blown bill of fare in his hand which the waiter
had given him, and which was a sort of general manuscript index to
any cookery-book you please, moved the previous question.
We could have mock-turtle soup, a sole, curry, and roast duck.
Agreed. At this table by this window. Punctually in an hour.
I had been feigning to look out of this window; but I had been
taking note of the crumbs on all the tables, the dirty tablecloths,
the stuffy, soupy, airless atmosphere, the stale leavings
everywhere about, the deep gloom of the waiter who ought to wait
upon us, and the stomach-ache with which a lonely traveller at a
distant table in a corner was too evidently afflicted. I now
pointed out to Bullfinch the alarming circumstance that this
traveller had DINED. We hurriedly debated whether, without
infringement of good breeding, we could ask him to disclose if he
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had partaken of mock-turtle, sole, curry, or roast duck? We
decided that the thing could not be politely done, and we had set
our own stomachs on a cast, and they must stand the hazard of the
die.
I hold phrenology, within certain limits, to be true; I am much of
the same mind as to the subtler expressions of the hand; I hold
physiognomy to be infallible; though all these sciences demand rare
qualities in the student. But I also hold that there is no more
certain index to personal character than the condition of a set of
casters is to the character of any hotel. Knowing, and having
often tested this theory of mine, Bullfinch resigned himself to the
worst, when, laying aside any remaining veil of disguise, I held up