There are three common meals—breakfast, luncheon-dinner, and dinner-supper—and any one who is not present at them, or who is hungry between times, will have to go without in the interval, and wait till the next regular meal-time comes round, unless he dare to invade the kitchen and curry favour with the cook, or goes down to some restaurant in the city.
Generally speaking, the table is furnished in a style most creditable as to both quantity and quality of the viands. There may not be such a show of plate and glass and ornament as there would be at a London hotel of similar status, but there is a plenteous profusion of varied eatables, fairly cooked and served up, to which profusion the home establishment is an utter stranger. Fish, fowl, butcher's meat, vegetables, breads and cakes, eggs, cream, and fruit, appear in such abundance that, when every one is nearly gorged, we wonder what can possibly be done with the overplus, especially since we are told that this is a city without paupers, as yet.
Fresh from the crystallized decorum of English manners, we are necessarily struck by the freedom of intercourse that prevails. Class prejudices have certainly been imported here from Europe, and exist to a small extent in Auckland society, but there is, withal, a nearer approach to true liberty, equality, and fraternity, at any rate in the manners and customs of colonists. The hotel servants show no symptoms of servility, though in civility they are not lacking. Every one is perfectly independent, and considers himself or herself on an equal footing with every one else, no matter what differences may exist in their present position—new-chums always excepted—while they ever bear in mind that such differences are only temporary, and may disappear any day in the chances and changes of life in a new country.
Our landlord and his wife preside at the meals, and, whoever may or might be present, comport themselves as a host and hostess entertaining a friendly party. In common with every one else, they take a lively interest in our intentions and prospects, and we are bewildered with conflicting advice and suggestions, some real and some jocular. They make us feel at home in the house very speedily, and cause us to forget that we are paying lodgers.
Not but what the bill will come up with due regularity, and will have to be met as promptly. And the mention of it reminds me to state that the tariff is eight shillings per day, inclusive of everything but liquors. This would be moderate enough in all conscience, according to English notions, but it is thought to be a luxurious price here. The minor hotels and boarding-houses in Auckland charge from a pound to thirty-five shillings per week. At present there is nothing higher than the price we pay at our hotel.
Having hinted at the social relations that obtain here, there will seem to be nothing outrageous in the following slight incident that illustrates them. One morning, soon after our arrival, I get down to breakfast rather late, after most of the guests have dispersed. Something seems to have creased our landlady's temper, for she greets me with—
"Look here, young man! I can't have people walking in to breakfast at all hours of the day. If you don't come down at the proper time, you'll have to go without in future—mind that!"
But at this juncture arrives the waiter, who is kind enough to favour me with his friendship, bringing with him a dish he has been keeping hot, and, as he slaps it down in front of me, he observes in a tone of mild remonstrance—
"Leave the man alone. I'll look after him. Now just you walk into that, my boy, and see if it won't suit your complaint!"
This is quite colonial style. But fancy an old-country landlady venturing to remonstrate with her boarder in such terms; and imagine the pitiable horror of a precise and formal Englishman, who might find himself so addressed by a waiter, and in the presence of the latter's mistress, too!