round the corner
and opposite the Bon Chef and me were first the two cashiers, then my
special friends, the Spanish dessert man and the Greek coffee and tea
man. That is, they were the main occupants of their long compartment,
but at the time of lunch rush at least six men worked there. Counting
the chore persons of various sorts and not counting waiters, we had
some thirty-eight working in or for our cafe--all men but the two fat
Porto-Rican glass washers and me.

Bridget, the dear old soul, came down that first afternoon to see how
I was getting along. I had cleaned up spick and span after the Spanish
woman--and a mess she always managed to leave. The water was out of
the egg-boiling machine and that all polished; the heat turned off in
the toasting machine and that wiped off; lemons sliced; celery
"Julietted"; and I was peeling a tubful of oranges--in the way the
steward had showed me--to be sliced by Spanish Mary for breakfast next
morning.

"I'm sure gettin' along swell," I told Bridget.

"God bless ye," said my dear old guide, and picked her way upstairs
again.

It was plain to see that down our way everybody's work eased up
between 3.30 and 5. Then everyone visited about, exchanged newspapers,
gossiped over counters. We changed stewards at three. Kelly, the
easy-going, jovial (except at times) Irishman, took himself off, and a
narrow-shouldered, small, pernickety German Jew came on for the rest
of my time. When we closed up at nine he went to some other part of
the hotel and stewarded.

My first afternoon Schmitz sauntered about to see what he could find
out. Where did I live, what did I do evenings, what time did I get up
mornings, what did I do Sundays? One question mark was Schmitz. One
thing only he did not ask me, because he knew that. He always could
tell what nationality a person was just by looking at him. So? Yes,
and he knew first thing what nationality I was. So? Yes, I was a
Turk. But the truth of it was that at the hotel I was part Irish and
part French and part Portuguese, but all I could talk was the Irish
because my parents had both died while I was very young. Another day,
my Greek friend, the coffee man, said he was sure there was a little
Greek in me; and an Austrian waiter guessed right away I was a bit
Austrian; and every Spaniard in the kitchen--and the hotel was full of
them--started by talking a mile-a-minute Spanish at me. So a
cosmopolitan, nondescript, melting-pot face is an asse