Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, Diane Monico, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net =The Onlooker= Alfred Henry Lewis Editor Vol. I NEW YORK, MAY 28, 1902 Part 2 [Illustration] "Sir Oliver, we live in a dammed wicked world, and the fewer we praise the better." --Sir Peter Teazle. FIVE CENTS ONCE A WEEK =The Onlooker= The Onlooker Subscription: One Dollar a Year Price: Five Cents CONTENTS THE CASUAL CLUB Tammany and Its Missing Funds--Mr. Nixon and his Failure--Mr. Carroll's Troubles with Mr. Croker--The Latter Gone for Good POETRY AS YOU LIKE IT Fielders Who Loves a Lord?--Killing for Futurity--Mistake in Vocation--Foreign Devils Again--Heaven or Hell--Adam a Myth--Hurrah for Noah--Callow Judgment--Champagne and "Champagne" THE PLAY Jaques LADY BETTY'S COMMENT Betty Stair DRIFT OF THE DAY Skirving THAT SMUGGLED SILK By the Old Lobbyist Copyrighted by The Observer Publishing Co., 1902 The Observer Publishing Company Mercantile Library Building Astor Place, New York City =The Onlooker= Vol. I MAY 28, 1902 Part 2 =The Casual Club= On last Thursday evening the Casual Club was gathered about a corner table in Sherry's. The great room was beautiful, the music brilliant, the setting and table appointments magnificent, and the dinner all that might be asked. There came but one thing to grieve the tempers of our members--the service was slip-shod, inattentive, vile. One wonders that so splendid an arrangement should be left unguarded in the most important particular of service; that Sherry, when he has done so much, should permit himself to be foiled of a last result by an idle carelessness of waiters, who if they do not forget one's orders outright, execute them with all imaginable sloth. They attend on guests as though the latter were pensioners, and are listless in everything save a collection of the gratuity, personal to themselves, which their avarice and a public's weakness have educated them to expect. * * * * *