of their lives in spying into other men's
affairs, think stupidly that their own actions
are quite concealed and secret, and that the
rest of the world is indifferent to them.
Error. Our most secret doings, nay, what
we imagine to be our inmost thoughts,
are often the open talk and jeer of hundreds
of people with whom we have never
interchanged a word. That more people know
Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows, is, though
at once a truism and a vulgarism, a profound
and philosophic axiom. Despise not the
waiter, for he may know you thoroughly.
Be careful what you do or say, for there are
hundreds of machicolated crevices in every
dead wall, whence spyglasses are pointed at
you; and the sky above is darkened with
little birds, eager to carry matters concerning
you. Dio ti vede (God sees thee) they write
on the walls in Italy. A man's own heart
should tell him this; but his common sense
should tell him likewise that men are also
always regarding him; that the streets
are full of eyes, the walls of ears. I should
like some self-sufficient cheap dandy to know
how contemptible and ridiculous he is to
hundreds whom he thinks admire him;
how the secret of his jewellery is revealed
and scoffed at, and his second-hand clothes
are appraised, and his carefully-concealed
garret is notorious. I should like some self-
righteous Pharisee to know how transparent
and loathsome his hypocrisy is, how his
oleaginous smile deceives no one, how his
secret cozenings, his occult vices are
divulged and bruited about, how men shrink
from the pressure of his fat clammy hand.
Should I like everybody to know how much
that is bad and mean and vile and
contemptible the rest of the world know
about them, how poorly they talk and
think of their fellows? No, it would be
intolerable. Psha! never mind what people
say of you; or rather, take you care that you
give them no cause to speak ill of you. Then,
if they persist in calumny, laugh, or go
bravely out and give them all the lie.

Being myself (or endeavouring, I dare say
wrongfully, to persuade myself that I am) of
the same way of thinking as that jovial miller
who had his residence on the banks of the
River Dee—caring not much for anybody, and
attributing a similar feeling towards myself
to the majority of my acquaintances—the
personal opinion of the waiter does not distress
me much; and I am enabled to concentrate
all my inquisitive faculties upon him. Yet I
am at once at issue with the jolly miller, for
I care a great deal for the waiter. I want to
know so much about him. Why his name in
England is never Christopher, Francis (the
last waiter by that name dates from Henry
the Fourth's time), Frederick, or Eugene;
and why, in France, he should never be
John or Thomas, but Alphonse, Antoine,
Auguste? An English waiting Anthony or
Augustus would be unbearable. How about
the waiter's home, too,—how about his wife,
his children ? Do they wear white neck-
cloths, and carry napkins over their arms?
Do they ever play at waiters? I know the
undertaker's children play at funerals; the
entire nation of French children play at
soldiers; I have seen children play at ships,
at school; I have been told, though I do not
credit it, that brokers' children play at
distraining for rent; but do the infant Johns
and Charleses play at Yes'r, and Coming?
Do they imitate in their baby manner the
footstep swift but stealthy?—the waiters'
wonderful lingering about a table, as if
something were wanted when nothing is
wanted, and which prompts you at last to
order in desperation something you do not
want? the whisking away of crumbs, the
mystic rubbing of the hands, the sudden
appearance, as if from a stage shooting-trap,
in unexpected places? the banalities of
waitorial conversation about the weather;
the long time that has elapsed since he
has had the pleasure of seeing you; and the
gentleman in the left-hand corner box, who
drank three bottles of port every night,
regular, for thirty years, always gave the
waiter ninepence when he went away; and,
dying worth a mint of money, left it to a
"horsespittle."

But a graver question is evoked by this.
Is waiting an art and mystery ? Have young
waiters to serve an apprenticeship to it, as to
other crafts, or is it self-taught, spontaneously
acquired ? I incline to the latter solution.
A young waiter—a boy waiter, I mean—is
simply a young bear that no amount of licking
will bring into shape. I can recal now a
horrible eidolon of a young cub of a boy
waiter who officiated in a Westmoreland inn.
I shall never forget his atrocious red head,
his mottled face (something like the tablets
of compressed vegetable soup), his flapping
ears, the huge encircling collar that
made his head look like an ugly bowpot, the
fixed grin, half-idiotic half-sardonic, that
distorted his gashed mouth. He was a very
Briareus of left hands; he stamped on your
corns in handing you the salt; he spilt
gravy over your linen; he never came when
he was wanted; he knew nothing, neither
the day of the month, nor the name of the
next house, nor the time for the train to
start. He fought with the boots, and had
his ears boxed by the cook, and whenever
you entered your bedroom you were sure to
find him there, contemplating your
portmanteau or your dressing-case with the same
horrible grin. I have met scores of these
oaves, miscalled waiters, in my travels. A
little girl, now, can wait with exquisite neatness
and dexterity. She grows up at last
into neat-handed Phillis, with the smile, the
ringlets, and the ribbons, who waits on you
in pleasant country-town inns; but of the
young waiter my fixed impression is that he
grows up a young carter, or a young