[CHAPTER II.]
It is a comparatively short ride from Chester to Liverpool, and of course we went to the Adelphi Hotel, so frequently heard mentioned our side of the water; and if ever an American desires a specimen of the tenacity with which the English cling to old fashions, their lack of what we style enterprise, let him examine this comfortable, curious, well kept, inconvenient old house, or rather collection of old residences rolled into a hotel, and reminding him of some of the old-fashioned hotels of thirty years ago at the lower part of the city of New York.
Upon the first day of my arrival I was inexperienced enough to come down with my wife to the "ladies' coffee-room" as it is called, before ordering breakfast. Let it be kept in mind that English hotels generally have no public dining and tea rooms, as in America, where a gentleman with ladies can take their meals; that solemn performance is done by Englishmen in the strictest privacy, except they are travelling alone, when they take their solitary table in "the coffee-room," and look glum and repellent upon the scene around at intervals of the different courses of their well-served solitary dinner. Public dining-rooms, however, are gradually coming into vogue at English hotels, and at the Star and Garter, Richmond, I dined in one nearly as large as that of the St. Nicholas, Fifth Avenue, or Parker House, crammed with chattering guests and busy waiters; but that was of a pleasant Sunday, in the height of the season, and the price I found, on settling the bill, fully up to the American standard.
But at the Adelphi I came down in the innocence of my heart, expecting to order a breakfast, and have it served with the American promptitude.
Alas! I had something to learn of the English manner of doing things. Here was the Adelphi always full to overflowing with new arrivals from America and new arrivals for America, and here was its ladies' coffee-room, a small square parlor with five small tables, capable of accommodating, with close packing, fifteen people, and the whole room served by one waiter. The room was full on my arrival; but fortunately, while I was hesitating what course to pursue, a lady and gentleman who had just finished breakfast arose, and we sat down at the table they had vacated.
In the course of ten minutes the waiter cleared the table and spread a fresh cloth. "'Ave you hordered breakfast, sir?"
"No! Bring me mutton chops, coffee, and boiled eggs, and hot biscuit, for two."
"Beg pardon, sir; chops, heggs, coffee—a—biscuits, aren't any biscuits, sir; send out and get some, sir."
Biscuits. I reflected; these benighted Britons don't understand what an American hot biscuit is. "No biscuits! Well, muffins, then."