SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE.

THE EXTRA CHRISTMAS NUMBER OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND.
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.
CONTAINING THE AMOUNT OF TWO ORDINARY NUMBERS.

CHRISTMAS, 1862.

Price 4d.

INDEX.

                                              PAGE
His Leaving it till called for . . . 1
His Boots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
His Umbrella . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
His Black Bag . . . . . . . . . . . .18
His Writing-Desk . . . . . . . . .  24
His Dressing-Case . . . . . . .   26
His Brown-Paper Parcel   . .  30
His Portmanteau  . . . . . . . . . 34
His Hat-Box . . . . . . . . . . . . .  40
His Wonderful End  . . . . . . .  45

HIS LEAVING IT TILL CALLED FOR.

THE writer of these humble lines being a
Waiter, and having come of a family of Waiters,
and owning at the present time five brothers who
are all Waiters, and likewise an only sister who
is a Waitress, would wish to offer a few words
respecting his calling; first having the pleasure
of hereby in a friendly manner offering the
Dedication of the same unto JOSEPH, much
respected Head Waiter at the Slamjam Coffeehouse,
London, E.C., than which a individual
more eminently deserving of the name of man,
or a more amenable honour to his own head
and heart, whether considered in the light of a
Waiter or regarded as a human being, do not
exist.

In case confusion should arise in the public
mind (which it is open to confusion on many
subjects) respecting what is meant or implied
by the term Waiter, the present humble lines
would wish to offer an explanation. 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), but such are
not Waiters. For, you cannot lay down the
tailoring, or the shoemaking, or the brokering,
or the green-grocering, or the pictorial
periodicalling, or the second-hand wardrobe, or the
small fancy, businesses—you cannot lay down
those lines of life at your will and pleasure by
the half-day or evening, and take up Waitering.
You may suppose you can, but you cannot; or
you may go so far as to say you do, but you
do not. Nor yet can you lay down the gentleman's-
service when stimulated by prolonged
incompatibility on the part of Cooks (and here it
may be remarked that Cooking and Incompatibility
will be mostly found united), and take
up Waitering. It has been ascertained that
what a gentleman will sit meek under, at home,
he will not bear out of doors, at the Slamjam or
any similar establishment. Then, what is the
inference to be drawn respecting true Waitering?
You must be bred to it. You must be
born to it.

Would you know how born to it, Fair
Reader—if of the adorable female sex? Then
learn from the biographical experience of one
that is a Waiter in the sixty-first year of his
age.

You were conveyed, ere yet your dawning
powers were otherwise developed than to
harbour vacancy in your inside—you were conveyed,
by surreptitious means, into a pantry adjoining
the Admiral Nelson, Civic and General Dining
Rooms, there to receive by stealth that healthful
sustenance which is the pride and boast of
the British female constitution. Your mother
was married to your father (himself a distant
Waiter) in the profoundest secresy; for a
Waitress known to be married would ruin the
best of businesses—it is the same as on the
stage. Hence your being smuggled into the
pantry, and that—to add to the infliction—by an
unwilling grandmother. Under the combined
influence of the smells of roast and boiled, and
soup, and gas, and malt liquors, you partook
of your earliest nourishment; your unwilling
grandmother sitting prepared to catch you
when your mother was called and dropped
you; your grandmother's shawl ever ready to
stifle your natural complainings; your innocent
mind surrounded by uncongenial cruets, dirty
plates, dish-covers, and cold gravy; your mother
calling down the pipe for veals and porks,
instead of soothing you with nursery rhymes.
Under these untoward circumstances you were
early weaned. Your unwilling grandmother,
ever growing more unwilling as your food
assimilated less, then contracted habits of shaking
you till your system curdled, and your food
would not assimilate at all. At length she was
no longer spared, and could have been thankfully
spared much sooner. When your brothers
began to appear in succession, your mother