“‘There’s no wages attached, as I suppose you know,’ continues she; ‘but the second floor goes with it, and if you know your business you ought to make from twenty-five to thirty shillings a week.’
“Thank you, Mrs. Wrench; that’ll suit me very well,’ replies he; and it was settled.
“He did better as a waiter; he’d got it in his blood, as you might say; and so after a time he worked up to be head-waiter. Now and then, of course, it came about that he found himself waiting on
the very folks that he’d been chums with in his classy days, and that must have been a bit rough on him. But he’d taken in a good deal of sense since then; and when one of the old sort, all rings and shirt-front, dining there one Sunday evening, started chaffing him, Jimmy just shut him up with a quiet: ‘Yes, I guess we were both a bit out of our place in those days. The difference between us now is that I have got back to mine,’ which cost him his tip, but must nave been a satisfaction to him.
“Altogether he worked in that hotel for some three and a half years, and then Mrs. Wrench sends for him again into the office.
“‘Sit down, James,’ says she.
“‘Thank you, Mrs. Wrench,’ says James, and sat.
“‘I’m thinking of giving up this hotel, James,’ says she, ‘and taking another near Dover, a quiet place with just such a clientele as I shall like. Do you care to come with me?’
“‘Thank you,’ says he, ‘but I’m thinking, Mrs. Wrench, of making a change myself.’
“‘Oh,’ says she, ‘I’m sorry to hear that, James. I thought we’d been getting on very well together.’