Americans -- England -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Millionaires -- Fiction
‘Oh!’ said the alert, middle-aged man, looking up at length. Beautifully
ignorant of the identity of the great Jules, he allowed his grey eyes to
twinkle as he caught sight of the expression on the waiter’s face.
‘Bring me an Angel Kiss.’
‘Pardon, sir?’
‘Bring me an Angel Kiss, and be good enough to lose no time.’
‘If it’s an American drink, I fear we don’t keep it, sir.’ The voice of
Jules fell icily distinct, and several men glanced round uneasily, as if
to deprecate the slightest disturbance of their calm. The appearance of
the person to whom Jules was speaking, however, reassured them somewhat,
for he had all the look of that expert, the travelled Englishman, who
can differentiate between one hotel and another by instinct, and who
knows at once where he may make a fuss with propriety, and where it is
advisable to behave exactly as at the club. The Grand Babylon was a
hotel in whose smoking-room one behaved as though one was at one’s club.
‘I didn’t suppose you did keep it, but you can mix it, I guess, even in
this hotel.’
‘This isn’t an American hotel, sir.’ The calculated insolence of the
words was cleverly masked beneath an accent of humble submission.
The alert, middle-aged man sat up straight, and gazed placidly at Jules,
who was pulling his famous red side-whiskers.
‘Get a liqueur glass,’ he said, half curtly and half with good-humoured
tolerance, ‘pour into it equal quantities of maraschino, cream, and
crême de menthe. Don’t stir it; don’t shake it. Bring it to me. And, I
say, tell the bar-tender--’
‘Bar-tender, sir?’
‘Tell the bar-tender to make a note of the recipe, as I shall probably
want an Angel Kiss every evening before dinner so long as this weather
lasts.’
‘I will send the drink to you, sir,’ said Jules distantly. That was his
parting shot, by which he indicated that he was not as other waiters
are, and that any person who treated him with disrespect did so at his
own peril.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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