know very well what goes on below; for our
wife brings her maid, who is on a visit too, and
made welcome to the greater community
downstairs. The place seems to swarm with the
ladies and gentlemen that attend on other ladies
and gentlemen. The strictest division is
enforced. Our lady's-maid, as a guest, is welcomed
in the housekeeper's room, and sits with Mr.
Cook, the butler, Mrs. Colley, the housekeeper,
Jackson, the groom of the chambers, and Mr.
Jones, the steward. Here more elegant manners
prevail. But afar off our maid hears the
pleasant laughter in the "servants' 'all," the
more unrestrained revels, where "Jeames"
and "Chawles" are giving way to their
natural spirits as men of the world, who know
town life, convulsing the rustics present by
their delineation of London life and manners.
To be a "gentleman" on a visit at one of
these great houses must be a great treat, and a
welcome change. My lord's valet has nothing
but the mere valet duties, in reference to my
lord's clothes and hot water; the rest of his
time is for himself. The noble person who
entertains takes care, for the sake of his own
credit, that the entertainment in the way of
eating and drinking shall be on a fitting scale
of liberality. My lord's valet, who is a fair
and rather sickly young man wearing beautiful
linen and a gold chain, is much admired by the
rosy and buxom ladies who look at him from
afar off, from the scullery say, but dare not
approach nearer. Of a morning we often see him
through the trees taking a pensive walk, really
as regards dress (he has a shooting-coat of my
lord's on) not to be distinguished from my
lord himself. But he is not much favoured by
the other gentlemen, who say he is "dayvilish
fine." Who that loves human character would
not take any reasonable step, save, of course,
unworthy listening at keyholes, &c., to look on
at this strange world down-stairs? It would
be the most entertaining mirth-moving
pastime. There is an admirable farce, full of
humour, the credit of which a clergyman-
schoolmaster assumed, but which really came from
DAVID GARRICK, that deals with this under-side
of life, and which has been too much neglected
of late years. Who has not laughed with a
genuine enjoyment at High Life Below Stairs,
and the quarrel of My Lord Duke and Sir
Harry about their respective pretensions to
"Lady Bab"? The chord of true humour is
touched here, and finds an echo in Reality, the
real source of genuine laughter. Not as now,
when some poor accident, which is merely
absurd and not humorous, some wretched twist
of mouth or catchword, is made the basis of
a farce. The point in High Life Below Stairs
is to be found in our nature, and the play will
be understood and relished a hundred years
hence.

In a community of this sort, where the menial
offices devolve on guests as well as hosts
(we are still on that lower level), there sometimes
will arise serious causes of quarrel. High words
arise, not so much between Jeames and Chawles,
as between Chawles and Miss Cotter, Lady
Harriet's own maid. This arises naturally out
of a division of duties only imperfectly settled;
and the guest betimes, as he lies in bed, has
heard an angry conflict on the stairs, alternating
with sarcasm and strong personality, together
with a sound as of ladies' boots being flung
down, with an "It ain't my dooty; I ain't a-going
to wait on your Lady Har-yet," with a prompt
retort, "Pick 'em up, you leow fellah you!"
But in the evenings in the 'all, everything is
smoothed away, and Chawles forgets the past
like a true gentleman and man of the world
as he is, who scorns to war with the softer
sex.

Perhaps the next entertaining and satisfactory
of all the lower professions, the most
variegated and exciting, must be that of a
"waiter" in elegant practice. It is surprising
it is not overstocked. There are many of our
sons and brothers in what they consider promising
practice at the bar, and making not nearly so
much in fees, and they never enjoy perquisites.
I speak, of course, of a waiter with a good
connexion, who is on terms of friendship with
the leading cooks and confectioners, and who
is known to have a light charming touch, and
so much respect for the dignity of his order
as to take but a moderate tithe out of what is
going. There are plenty of your rude coarse
hands, whose very air and bearing are an offence.
In all professions there are the bunglers; the
heavy men, who miss the opportunity often
offered, and which does not again present itself.

It is surprising how much depends on this
"tact," as it may be called. How often has
the first brief set the briefless on his road to
fame and fortune! Erskine, when so called on
in an emergency, felt, he said, his little ones at
home tugging at his gown. And often the
stray waiter, obscure, unknown, "had in" on
the pressure of the moment, simply and wholly
because there was none else to be had, this
artist—to speak by the card—has so thoroughly
identified himself with the part, thrown himself
with such good humour and zeal in the
desperation of the crisis supplying the place
of the absent, being here, there, and everywhere,
that he at once attracted the favour
of all present; and A. B. (he would not
like me to name him), whom we now feel
hovering behind us at my lord duke's, nay,
even at yet higher jinks, without whom no
decent solemnity is complete, who has a clerk
to keep his book and take his fees (as in the
other profession), traces it all to this humble
beginning. But I think it was the occasion, not
the cause. His preferment must have come.
But, it may be repeated, of all the less exalted
professions, which entail what is called the
sweat of the brow, waiting is the most
enticing. Waiters see the best and the most
intellectual: they hold conversations with the noblest
and most gifted in the land—with the premier,
the primate, the lord mayor, the poet, the
novelist, the orator: they converse in easy
fashion on the peripatetic questions as to the