Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall “Christmas Stories”edition , email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
The writer of these humble lines being a Waiter, and having comeof a family of Waiters, and owning at the present time five brotherswho are all Waiters, and likewise an only sister who is a Waitress,would wish to offer a few words respecting his calling; first havingthe pleasure of hereby in a friendly manner offering the Dedicationof the same unto Joseph, much respected Head Waiter at the SlamjamCoffee-house, London, E.C., than which a individual more eminently deservingof 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 opento confusion on many subjects) respecting what is meant or implied bythe 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 isnot a Waiter. It may not be generally known that the handas is called in extra, at the Freemasons’ Tavern, or the London,or the Albion, or otherwise, is not a Waiter. Such handsmay be took on for Public Dinners by the bushel (and you may know themby their breathing with difficulty when in attendance, and taking awaythe 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-handwardrobe, or the small fancy businesses,—you cannot lay down thoselines 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 yetcan you lay down the gentleman’s-service when stimulated by prolongedincompatibility on the part of Cooks (and here it may be remarked thatCooking and Incompatibility will be mostly found united), and take upWaitering. It has been ascertained that what a gentleman willsit meek under, at home, he will not bear out of doors, at the Slamjamor any similar establishment. Then, what is the inference to bedrawn 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 adorablefemale sex? Then learn from the biographical experience of onethat is a Waiter in the sixty-first year of his age.
You were conveyed,—ere yet your dawning powers were otherwisedeveloped 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 healthfulsustenance which is the pride and boast of the British female constitution. Your mother was married to your father (himself a distant Waiter) inthe profoundest secrecy; for a Waitress known to be married would ruinthe best of businesses,—it is the same as on the stage. Hence your being smuggled into the pantry, and that—to add tothe infliction—by an unwilling grandmother. Under the combinedinfluence of the smells of roast and boiled, and soup, and gas, andmalt liquors, you partook of your earliest nourishment; your unwillinggrandmother sitting prepared to catch you when your mother was calledand dropped you; your grandmother’s shawl ever ready to stifleyour natural complainings; your innocent mind surrounded by uncongenialcruets, dirty plates, dish-covers, and cold gravy; your mother callingdown the pipe for veals and porks, instead of soothing you with nurseryrhymes. Under these untoward circumstances you were early weaned. Your unwilling grandmo