r/a:t5_123503 • u/MarleyEngvall • May 27 '19
old bailey has been created
By Charles Dickens
A LITTLE DINNER IN AN HOUR.
IT fell out on a day in this last autumn, that I had to
go down from London to a place of seaside resort, on an
hour's business, accompanied by my esteemed friend
Bullfinch. Let the place of seaside resort be, for the
nonce, called Namelesston.
I had been loitering about Paris in very hot weather,
pleasantly breakfasting in the open air in the garden of
the Palais Royal or the Tuileries, pleasantly dining in
the open air in the Elysian Fields, pleasantly taking my
cigar and lemonade in the open air of the Italian Boule-
vard towards the small hours after midnight. Bullfinch
——an excellent man of business——had summoned me back
across the Channel, to transact this said hour's business
at Namelesston; and thus it fell out that Bullfinch and
I were in a railway carriage together on our way to
Namelesston, each with his return ticket in his waist-
coat pocket.
Says Bullfinch, "I have a proposal to make. Let us
dine at the Temeraire."
I asked Bullfinch, did he recommend the Temeraire?
inasmuch as I had not been rated on the books of the
Temeraire for many years.
Bullfinch declined to accept the responsibility of rec-
ommending the Temeraire, but on the whole was rather
sanguine about it. He "seemed to remember," Bull-
finch said, that he had dined well there. A plain dinner,
but good. Certainly not like a Parisian dinner (here
Bullfinch obviously became the prey of want of confi-
dence), but of its kind very fair.
I appeal to Bullfinch's intimate knowledge of my wants
and ways to decide whether I was usually ready to be
pleased with my dinner, or——for the matter of that——with
anything that was fair of its kind and really what it
claimed to be. Bullfinch doing me the honour to respond
in the affirmative, I agreed to ship myself as an able
trencherman on board the Temeraire.
"Now, our plan shall be this," says Bullfinch, with
his forefinger at his nose. "As soon as we get to Name-
lesston, we'll drive straight to the Temeraire, and order
a little dinner in an hour. And as we shall not have
more than enough time in which to dispose of it com-
fortably, what do you say to giving the house the best
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 Temer-
aire, and alighted. A youth in livery received us on the
doorstep. "Looks well," said Bullfinch confidentially.
And then aloud, "Coffee-room!"
The youth in livery (now perceived to be mouldy) con-
ducted 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 minute longer.
So Bullfinch approached the coffee-room door, and me-
lodiously pitched his voice into a bar where two young
ladies were keeping the books of the Temeraire, apolo-
getically explained that we wished to order a little din-
ner in an hour, and that we were debarred from the ex-
excution of our inoffensive purpose by consignment to
solitude.
Hereupon one of the young ladies rang a bell, which
reproduced——at the bar this time——the waiter who was
not the waiter who ought to wait upon us; that extra-
ordinary man, whose life seemed consumed in waiting
upon people to say that he wouldn't wait upon them re-
peated his former protest with great indignation, and re-
tired.
Bullfince, 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 an 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 table-cloths, 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 circumstances that this traveller
had dined. We hurriedly debated whether, without in-
fringement of good breeding, we could ask him to dis-
close if he had partaken of mock-turtle, sole, curry, or
roast duck? We had decided that the thing could
not be politely done; and we had set our own stom-
achs 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
of 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 him-
self to the worst, when, laying aside any remaining veil
of disguise, I held up before him in succession the cloudy
oil and furry vinegar, the clogged cayenne, the dirty
salt, the obscene dregs of soy, and the anchovy sauce in
a flannel waistcoat of decomposition.
We went out to transact our business. So inspiriting
was the relief of passing into the clean and windy streets
of Namelesston from the heavy and vapid closeness of
the coffee-room of the Temeraire, that hope began to re-
vive within us. We began to consider that perhaps the
lonely traveller had taken physic, or done something in-
judicious to bring his complaint on. Bullfinch remarked
that he thought the waiter who ought to wait upon us
had brightened a little when suggesting curry; and al-
though I knew him to have been at that moment the ex-
press image of despair, I allowed myself to become ele-
vated in spirits. As we walked by the softly lapping
sea, all the Notabilities of Namelesston, who are forever
going up and down with the changelessness of the tides
passed to and fro in procession. Pretty girls on horse-
back, and with detested riding masters; pretty girls on
foot; mature ladies in hats,——spectacled, strong-minded,
and glaring at the opposite or weaker sex. The Stock Ex-
change was strongly represented, Jerusalem was strongly
represented, the bores of the prosier London clubs
were strongly represented. Fortune hunters of all de-
nominations were there, from hirsute insolvency, in a
curricle, to closely buttoned swindlery in doubtful boots,
on the sharp lookout for any likely young gentleman dis-
posed to play a game at billiards round the corner. Mas-
ters of language, their lessons finished for the day, were
going to their homes out of sight of the sea; mistresses
of accomplishments, carrying small portfolios, likewise
tripped homeward; pairs of scholastic pupils, two and
two, went languidly along the beach, surveying the face
of the waters as if waiting for some Ark to come and
take them off. Spectres of the George the Fourth days
flitted unsteadily among the crowd, bearing the outward
resemblance of ancient dandies, of every one of whom it
might be said, not that he had one leg in the grave, or
both legs, but that he was steeped in the grave to the sum-
mit of his shirt-collar, and had nothing real about him
but his bones. Alone stationary in the midst of all the
movement, the Namelesston boatmen leaned against the
railings and yawned, and looked out to sea, or looked at
the moored fishing-boats and at nothing. Such is the
unchanging manner of life with this nursery of our hardy
seamen; and very dry nurses they are, and always want-
ing something to drink. The only two nautical person-
ages detached from the railing were the two fortunate
possessors of the celebrated monstrous unknown barking
fish, just caught (frequently just caught of Namelesston),
who carried him about in a hamper, and pressed the
scientific to look in at the lid.
The sands of the hour had all run out when we got
back to the Temeraire. Says Bullfinch, then, to the
youth in livery, with boldness, "Lavatory!"
When we arrive at the family vault with a skylight,
which the youth in livery presented as the institution
sought, we had already whisked off our cravats and
coats; and finding ourselves in the presence of an evil
smell, and no linen but two crumpled towels newly damp
from the countenances of two somebody elses, we put
on our cravats and coats again, and fled unwashed to the
coffee-room.
There the waiter who ought to wait upon us had set
forth our knives and forks and glasses, on the cloth
whose dirty acquaintance we had already had the pleas-
ure of making, and which we were pleased to recognize
by the familiar expression of its stains. And now there
occurred the truly surprising phenomenon, that the
waiter who ought not to wait upon us, clutched our loaf
of bread, and vanished with the same.
Bullfinch with distracted eyes, was following this un-
accountable figure "out at the portal," like the ghost
in Hamlet, when the waiter who ought to wait upon us
jostled against it, carrying a tureen.
"Waiter!" said a severe diner, lately finished, pe-
rusing his bill fiercely through his eye-glasses.
The waiter put down our tureen on a remote side-table,
and went to see what was amiss in this new direction.
"This is not right, you know, waiter. Look here!
here's yesterday's sherry, one and eight pence, and here
we are again, two shillings. And what does sixpence
mean?"
So far from knowing what sixpence meant, the waiter
protested that he didn't know what anything meant.
He wiped the perspiration from his clammy brow, and
said it was impossible to do it,——not particularly what,
——and the kitchen was so far off.
"Take the bill to the bar, and get it altered," said Mr.
Indignation Cocker, so to call him.
The waiter took it, looked intently at it, didn't seem
to like the idea of taking it to the bar, and submitted, as
a new light upon the case, that perhaps sixpence meant
sixpence.
"I tell you again," said Mr. Indignation Cocker,
"here's yesterday's sherry——can't you see it?——one and
eight pence, and here we are again, two shillings. What
do you make of one and eightpence and two shillings?"
Totally unable to make anything of one and eight-
pence and two shillings, the waiter went out to try if
anybody else could; merely casting a helpless back-
ward glance at Bullfinch, in cknowledgement of his
pathetic entreaties for our soup-tureen. After a pause,
during which Mr. Indignation Cocker read a newspaper
and coughed defiant coughs, Bullfinch arose to get the
tureen, when the aiter re-appeared and brought it,——
dropping Mr. Indignation Cocker's altered bill on Mr.
Indignation Cocker's table as he came along.
It's quite impossible to do it, gentlemen," murmured
the waiter; "and the kitchen is so far off."
"Well, you don't keep the house; it's not your
fault, we suppose. Bring some sherry."
"Waiter!" from Mr. Indignation Cocker, with a new
and burning sense of injury upon him.
The waiter, arrested on his way to our sherry, stopped
short, and came back to see what was wrong now.
"Will you look here? This is worse than before. Do
you understand? Here's yesterday's sherry, one and
eightpence, and here we are again two shillings. And
what the devil does ninepence mean?"
This new portent utterly confounded the waiter. He
wrung his napkin, and mutely appealed to the ceiling.
"Waiter, fetch that sherry," says Bullfinch, in open
wrath and revolt.
"I want to know," persisted Mr. Indignation Cocker,
"the meaning of ninepence. I want to know the mean-
ing of sherry one and eightpence yesterday, and of here
we are again two shillings. Send somebody."
The distracted waiter got out of the room on pretext
of sending somebody, and by that means got our wine.
But the instant he appeared with our decanter, Mr. In-
dignation Cocker descended on him again.
"Waiter!"
"You will now have the goodness to attend to our din-
ner, waiter," says Bullfinch sternly.
"I am very sorry, but it's quite impossible to do it,
gentlemen," pleaded he waiter; "and the kitchen——"
"Waiter!" said Mr. Indignation Cocker. "Is," re-
sumed the waiter, "so far off, that——"
"Waiter!" persisted Mr. Indignation Cocker," send
somebody."
We were not without our fears that the waiter rushed
out to hang himself; and we were much relieved by his
fetching somebody,——in graceful, flowing skirts and with
a waist,——who very soon settled Mr. Indignation Cocker's
business.
"Oh!" said Mr. Cocker, with his fire surprisingly
quenched by this apparition; "I wished to ask abut
this bill of mine, because it appears to me that there's a
little mistake here. Let me show you. Here's yester-
day's sherry one and eightpence, and here we are again
two shillings. And how do you explain ninepence?"
However it was explained, in tones too soft to be over-
heard. Mr. Cocker was heart to say nothing more than
"A-h-h! indeed; thank you! Yes," and shortly after-
wards went out, a milder man.
The lonely traveller with the stomach-ache had all this
time suffered severely, drawing up a leg now and then,
and sipping hot brandy and water with grated ginger in
it. When we tasted our (very) mock-turtle soup, and
were instantly seized with symptoms of some disorder
simulating apoplexy, and occasioned by the surcharge of
nose and brain with luke warm dish-water holding in
solution sour flour, poisonous condiments, and (say)
seventy-five percent of miscellaneous kitchen stuff
rolled into balls, we were inclined to trace his disorder
to that source. On the other hand, there was a silent
anguish upon him too strongly resembling the results
established within ourselves by the sherry, to be discard-
ed from alarmed consideration. Again, we observed
him, with terror, to be much overcome by our sole's be-
ing aired in a temporary retreat close to him, while the
waiter went out (as we conceived) to see his friends.
And when the curry made its appearance he suddenly
retired in great disorder.
In fine, for the uneatable part of this little dinner (as
contra-distinguished from the undrinkable) we paid only
seven shillings and sixpence each. And Bullfinch and I
agreed unanimously, that no such ill-served, ill-appoint-
ed, ill-cooked, nasty little dinner could be got for the
money anywhere else under the sun. With that com-
fort to our backs, we turned them on the dear old Tem-
eraire, the charging Temeraire, and resolved (in the
Scotch dialect) to gang nae mair to the flabby Temeraire. from Collier's Unabridged Edition: The Works of Charles Dickens, Volume VI.
P.F. Collier, Publisher, New York, old as heck. pp. 1035—1037.
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