Jumbo received us with that slow good-humour which has made his business
what it is. He and his assistant, Dusty, a youngster of sixty-two who
cuts about like a newsboy, have worked together for so many years that
Dusty frequently tells his chief not to be such a Censored fool. Jumbo's
joints are good, and so are his steak-toad, sprouts, and baked, but his
steak-and-kidney puddings at fourpence are better. I had one of these,
garnished with "boiled and tops." Georgie had "leg, well done, chips,
and batter." I never knew a man who could do the commonplace with so
much natural dignity. He gave his order with the air of a viveur
planning a ten-course arrangement at Claridge's. He shouted for a
half-of-bitter with the solemnity of one who commands that two bottles
of dry Monopole be put on the ice. He is, too, the only man I know who
salutes his food. I have been at dinners in Wesleyan quarters like St.
John's Wood where heads of families have mumbled what they call Grace or
"asking a blessing"; but I have seen nothing so simply beautiful as
George's obeisance to his filled plate. He bows to Irish stew as others
dip to the altar.
While Dusty stalked a clean fork through a forest of dirty ones, Georgie
fired at him questions in which I had no part. Did Dusty remember the
show at Willie's about--how many was it?--twenty years ago? What a
NIGHT! Did he remember how Phil May had squirted the syphon down poor
old Pitcher's neck? And Clarence ... Clarence was fairly all out that
night--what? And next morning--when they met Jimmy coming down the steps
of the Garrick Club--_what?_
To all of which Dusty replied: "Ah, yes, sir. I should say so. That's
the idea, sir. Those was the days!" Then the dinner came along, and we
started on it. I prefer to be attended by Jumbo. Dusty's service of
steak-pudding is rather in the nature of a spar. Jumbo, on the other
hand, places your plate before you with the air of one doing something
sacramental.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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