Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/606

598 noise continued with unabated fury; then, as gradually as it had commenced, the shouting ceased and became murmurs, the doors banged off one by one, until there seemed no more to bang, the lights went out like specks of fire upon a burnt paper, and then all was again in darkness and silence. What could it mean? In vain I asked myself the question, and no one came to the door to enlighten me upon the subject, or to give me admittance. “I’ll try once more,” I exclaimed, “and this shall be the last time.” I rang feebly and despairingly. Instantly bells seemed to ring all over the house and passages. Big bells and little bells, near bells and distant bells, up-stairs bells and down-stairs bells, burst out together in one long continuous angry jangle. The last little bell was still tinkling away somewhere up in the garrets, when a light once again appeared, and this time as if it were coming up a trap in the floor of the hall. I saw it was borne by the head waiterhead-waiter [sic]. He was only partly dressed, and he wore a nightcap made out of a red handkerchief. He looked for an instant towards where I stood, and then shambled in his slippers to the door, let down the chain, half opened the door, put his nose through the opening, and breathed out a ghostly, inflamed, husky whisper, “Who is it?”

“It’s me,” I said somewhat petulantly, “open the door.”

He rubbed his eyes, held up the light, looked intensely hard at the wick of the candle, said “Oh!” and opened the door.

“Well, you have kept me a pretty time outside,” I said, as I entered. “I have been ringing the bell since eleven, and by George, there goes one o’clock. I’m wet to the skin and nearly dead with cold.”

The head-waiter was putting the chain up in a fumbling uncertain sort of gaoler fashion. He didn’t seem to be altogether quite awake yet, and from the fumes of rum and the smell of tobacco smoke that pervaded him, and the very fishy and winking condition of his eyes, I concluded that Bacchus had assisted Morpheus in the task of lulling him to sleep. In reply to my observation he simply breathed out another rum-and-water “Oh!” and hoisted his apparel about his waist in a dreamy way.

“Has anything been the matter?” I continued, as I lighted a bedroom candle. “What a terrible row there was in the house at about half-past twelve.”

“Was there, though?” he said, with a yawn, a hiccup, and a lurch. “Now, was there, though? Well, you knows best, I’ve no doubt.”

And without another word he shuffled away, with his two long braces dragging behind him and bumping their buckles on the floor, looking like a drunken old bashaw, whilst I went off to bed.

slept so sound in my life as I did that night. It was eleven o’clock before I came down-stairs and entered the coffee-room to order breakfast. There was only one gentleman in the room, and he was seated at a table at the extreme end having breakfast, with a newspaper balancing against the coffee biggin, and simultaneously devouring the news and the buttered toast in the heartiest manner possible. He was a small, middle-aged gentleman, and was evidently suffering from severe nervousness, for he made a great clatter with the cups and spoons, knocking them together loudly; and I noticed that his hands and head shook so continuously that he had the greatest difficulty in carrying anything in a direct line to his mouth. His hair, which was short and black, stood up very straight and stiff, and he wore a large pair of gold eye-glasses. As I entered and took my seat at a table near the window, he fixed his glasses with greater steadiness upon his nose, and directed at me a long and anxious gaze. Apparently, however, finding that I was a stranger, he turned the newspaper with much gesticulation, and went on with his breakfast.

It was not a rude look. It was only the stare of a short-sighted man; but still it made me think of three trifling incidents that had occurred to me on my passage down-stairs from my bedroom to the coffee-room. On the first landing I had met the chambermaid. Immediately she had seen me she had backed into a corner, and had stared at me with mingled curiosity and terror until I had passed. On a lower floor I had encountered the Boots. On seeing me, he had instantly dropped a bootjack, two chamber-candlesticks, three pair of slippers, and a warming-pan, with a terrible clatter, and then wagged his head reprovingly at me as if I had done it. Finally, in crossing the hall, the second waiter—a limp wretch in a perpetual perspiration—on meeting me, turned on his heel, and, with a half-smothered cry, fled up a passage. The head-waiter here entered the room. He had resumed his usual dignified appearance; his white cravat was stiff and spotless, and his black wig was curled and oiled into quite a lustrous condition. He made a complete circuit of the room, walking in a solemn manner, and looking at me gravely the while; and, having done this, he approached my table, leant over it on the knuckles of his hands, and contemplated me sternly and inquiringly.

“Breakfast, waiter, if you please.”

“Oh! breakfast?” he repeated, without altering his position. “Well now, sir, did you order breakfast?”

“Yes,” I answered; “and I should like it as quick as possible.”

“Ah!” said the waiter, heaving a deep sigh, and still in a contemplative condition. “Should you? Mind, I don’t say you shouldn’t. Only it may be difficult—and then, again, it’s rather unnatural—that’s all.”

And then, before I could express my surprise at this extraordinary conduct on his part, he bent his head near to mine, and whispered in my ear:

“You’ve done it.”

“Done it! Done what? What do you mean?” I said, instinctively adopting a whispered tone.

“Horful!” gasped the waiter, in the same horrid whisper, and throwing his head and eyes up. “No one could have believed it. I am not a bad sort, sir; but I am a family man, sir; I have a wife and three small children, one of ’em, sir, now in arms and cutting its teeth, sir; and when a family man has been examined in the