'I wish you could,' she said. 'I'd fix her right now.'
'Quite impossible,' I murmured, hoping that I was speaking the truth. Not so far off there was a young woman, standing chatting genially with two men at another table, who might have brought me that tea.
'Oh, well, of course if you can't,' said the sharp one, and presently brought me coffee with her own fair white-cuffed hands. I thanked her warmly, and she went away; after which I was rewarded for my supposed chivalry by the young woman who had been entertaining those other two men coming up to me and saying in a sweet voice:
'I say, I'm awfully sorry that I brought you that tea instead of coffee. The fact is we're awfully rushed this morning.'
'Not at all,' I said, 'don't think of it,' and hoped inwardly that she would go away before the sharp one spotted her and bore down upon us. She did not seem so rushed as she had said.
'Sure you won't have anything else now?' she persisted in the kindliest way.
'No, thank you,' I said, and seeing, I suppose, that I was not an entertaining person, she flitted gracefully away to a third table where another male sat, to whom I heard her whisper in passing—on the way to further chat with the other two men:
'Now, mind you don't forget to meet me outside the hotel at six sharp!'
My sympathies almost went out to the sharp-visaged spinster, for really there were quite a number of guests looking about them for food while the rushed staff chatted freely and pleasantly with such male visitors as seemed by their bearing to be worthy of being fascinated. This at breakfast-time—breakfast-time when an Englishman at all events wants food and would not be put off by the conversation of Cleopatra or Helen of Troy. Canadians may be a more gallant race at this hour of the day, but I am not sure of this. The preponderance of Japanese waiters as one gets further West seems to point to the fact that even they prefer food—at meal-times—to sentiment. The Japanese may demand high wages, and leave their places suddenly if they feel like it, but at least they do not threaten one with an emotional scene over one's morning coffee. Nor do I imagine that they require to be treated by their employers with quite that reverential respect of which I remember seeing an example in a small hotel in the Columbia Valley. I was stopping at the hotel over Sunday with a friend, and as we wanted to go out for the day, we asked the manager if we could be supplied with some sandwiches for lunch. He was a mild and obliging young man, but his face fell.