Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/85

Rh watchman, who attends to the dining-room, I wanted him to go with me to the kitchen, as I wanted to see how it looked at night.

We went down, found the French cooks, with their white caps on, busy getting tip a sumptuous supper for the managers; everything clean and in its place. The night scene was quite different from the day scene, as, in the day time, I have seen about a hundred servants standing round, with their white aprons on, waiting for the different dishes for those they attended, while the head cook would serve choice dishes to those gentlemen who provided them for themselves, game or such like, by that means making a great confusion among the boarders and waiters, many thinking they paid high board and did not get what others did, of course not being aware these gentlemen provided their own. I then went back to the ball-room, and staid there till its dispersion.

It being late, and the night gloomy, I determined to stay all night in the hotel, so I thought I would witness the proceedings in the servant's hall. After the servants had put their ladies safely to bed, they returned to the fifth story to their apartments. About thirty or forty had a regular concert; some of them sang well, imitating ladies and gentlemen they had heard during the day. In the lower end of the hall was a party playing euchre, and from the appearance of bottles and glasses, I fancy there was as much champaigne, claret, and good brandy drank there, as in the club-room. I was amused, on going forward, to hear a toast to the health of Mr. Longworth drank by them, for his good old wine, to say nothing of how they came by it. Another set were dancing