How we besiege him in the morning! "Luncheon, ADOLF, for a party of seven, in a basket--a _nice_ basket, you know--and don't forget the corkscrew." "Yes, yes, I know--and you take the bottle-bier--it is much better nor the warne. Ha! Ha!" What a laugh!--a roguish, child-like merriment of a Greek-godlike character--or want of it. Old Ladies talk to him quite trustingly at first sight; it's "ADOLF, _have_ you such a thing as a bottle of gum--_gummi_, gum, you understand"; or, "_Could_ you get me another cushion"? He can, and does. As for the children, they love him; he romps with them, and does conjuring tricks, and warbles innumerable songs. That man gets through more in one day than the Prime Minister of England--and, between you and me, I believe he is fully as capable--and yet he finds time to write a letter to his old mother at Hamburg--I have seen him do it. Perhaps it was about the cigars! The only people who hate ADOLF are the Under-Waiters; he rules them with a rod of iron, marshalling their heated battalions at _table d'hote_, and plundering them of their sweethearts; if he breaks anything (hearts included), it is they who have to pay. It is ADOLF's only weakness--he is a bully to underlings of his own trade. But then he has been an Under-Waiter once himself, and suffering brutalises; however, he is outside the sphere of morality, and I could pardon him almost anything. From time to time his fascinations induce an Englishman or Englishwoman to take this treasure home as a servant. But ADOLF in livery, and ADOLF with his magic order-book, are two very different people. Little things are missing; he becomes quarrelsome; the gipsy-spirit returns--and he is off again, blithe as ever, on his travels. "London very naice," he says, as you buy that infernal Pestarena; "Porebier, very naise; 'Ampton Court, very naise; I know dem, hein? But, is no sunshine, no air, no gaiety." And ADOLF cannot exist without sunshine, air, and gaiety. Also he prefers being his own master, which, as Head-Waiter, he practically is. How insinuating he is about the food, "Some naice fishes? Dey was laiving dis morning." And then, how accommodating! I was once in the Grand Hotel during the usual "exceptional season," when it rained unintermittently for a fortnight; the place was empty; "tristeful," as ADOLF styled it. The genius played billiards with me every day, and always won, though I rather fancy myself; and then how mindful he is of your individual bettings. "I gif you dis place by de window--_to do you joy_!" he ejaculates. The simple creature, he is constantly trying to "make you please." I always present ADOLF with ten shillings--five on arrival, and five on departure. This procures me many harmless little privileges; and when old BROWN calls him an impertinent brute, I know that BROWN and ten shillings are difficult to part. There is nothing ADOLF will not do for you for a sovereign--but I cannot run to this; and yet this is the impression he has made.