“It may, sir, and it may not,” answered the waiter, with the caution of a man who has resolved, come what may, never to commit himself. “Sometimes it comes on to blow, sir, w’en we don’t look for it; at other times it falls calm w’en we least expects it. I don’t pretend to understand much about the weather myself, sir, but I shouldn’t wonder if it was to come on to blow ’ard. It ain’t an uncommon thing at Ramsgate, sir.”
The traveller, who was a man of few words, said “Humph!” to which the waiter dutifully replied “Yessir,” feeling, no doubt, that the observation was too limited to warrant a lengthened rejoinder.
The waiter of the Fortress Hotel had a pleasant, sociable, expressive countenance, which beamed into a philanthropic smile as he added—
“Can I do anything for you, sir?”
“Yes—tea,” answered the traveller with the keen grey eyes, turning, and poking the fire with the heel of his boot.
“Anything with it, sir?” asked the waiter with that charmingly confident air peculiar to his class, which induces one almost to believe that if a plate of elephant’s foot or a slice of crocodile’s tail were ordered it would be produced, hot, in a few minutes.
“D’you happen to know a man of the name of Jones in the town?” demanded the traveller, facing round abruptly.
The waiter replied that he had the pleasure of knowing at least seven Joneses in the town.
“Does one of the seven deal largely in cured fish and own a small sloop?” asked the traveller.
“Yessir, he do, but he don’t live in Ramsgate; he belongs to Yarmouth, sir, comes ’ere only now and then.”