The scene represented a restaurant of quiet aspect, into which entered a waiter bearing a pile of plates some two feet high. The waiter being intoxicated, the tower of plates leaned this way and that as he staggered about, and the whole house really did hold its breath in the simultaneous hope and fear of an enormous and resounding smash. Then entered a second intoxicated waiter, also bearing a pile of plates some two feet high; and the risk of destruction was thus more than doubled--it was quadrupled, for each waiter, in addition to the risks of his own inebriety, was now subject to the dreadful peril of colliding with the other. However, there was no catastrophe. Then arrived two customers, one in a dress suit and an eye-glass, and the other in a large violet hat, a diamond necklace, and a yellow satin skirt. The which customers, seemingly well used to the sight of drunken waiters tottering to and fro with towers of plates, sat down at a table and waited calmly for attention. The popular audience, with that quick mental grasp for which popular audiences are so renowned, soon perceived that the table was in close proximity to a lofty sideboard, and that on either hand of the sideboard were two chairs, upon which the two waiters were trying to climb in order to deposit their plates on the top-most shelf of the sideboard. The waiters successfully mounted the chairs, and successfully lifted their towers of plates to within half an inch of the desired shelf, and then the chairs began to show signs of insecurity. By this time the audience was stimulated to an ecstasy of expectation, whose painfulness was only equalled by its extreme delectability. The sole unmoved persons in the building were the customers awaiting attention at the restaurant table. One tower was safely lodged on the shelf. But was it? It was not! Yes? No! It curved; it straightened; it curved again. The excitement was as keen as that of watching a drowning man attempt to reach the shore. It was simply excruciating. It could not be borne any longer, and when it could not be borne any longer, the tower sprawled irrevocably, and seven dozen plates fell in a cascade on the violet hat, and so, with an inconceivable clatter, to the floor. Almost at the same moment the being in the dress suit and the eye-glass--becoming aware of the phenomena--slightly unusual even in a restaurant, dropped his eye-glass, turned round to the sideboard, and received the other waiter’s seven dozen plates in the face and on the crown of his head.