A few minutes later, the first course was before us—as if by magic!
Never have I had such a quick, well-served dinner, or encountered such a courteous, electrified waiter. The man's soul was not his own. It was simply a pawn in the hand of a skilful player.
"The ball no question makes of ayes or noes,
But right or left, as strikes the player, goes."
Even the God of Omar shrank into insignificance by the side of ours.
"I'm sorry for that waiter," whispered Gran'pa to me. "But I'm sorrier for those gorillas. We have them like that!"
He took up a crisp roll of bread and broke it in two.
"There's a vast difference between a tame waiter and a wild African gorilla," I pointed out, thinking of some of the gruesome accounts I had been reading that morning.
"Give me the gorilla!" laughed Gran'pa. "Much more intelligent and useful. It could fetch and carry every bit as well as that man; eh, Stringer?"
Stringer nodded and went on eating.
He looked as if he had a weight on his mind. Like all great men, he seemed to hold himself a little aloof from his fellow creatures. Possibly, his soul was too busy at the switchboard of his mental machinery to notice external trifles. I pictured it dashing perspiringly up and down the corridors of his brain, pulling first this lever and then that—turning on the various currents required to subdue his weaker brethren. And yet he was not all soul. His colossal appetite dispelled any such illusion as that. He ate ravenously, quickly, and a trifle piggishly. He also kept a watchful eye on the wine bottle.