l, and instructed him to come
to the rescue with a minute steak.

Salvatore was the dark, sinister-looking waiter who attended, among
other tables, to the one at the far end of the grill-room at which
Archie usually sat. For several weeks Archie's conversations with the
other had dealt exclusively with the bill of fare and its contents; but
gradually he had found himself becoming more personal. Even before the
war and its democratising influences, Archie had always lacked that
reserve which characterises many Britons; and since the war he had
looked on nearly everyone he met as a brother. Long since, through the
medium of a series of friendly chats, he had heard all about Salvatore's
home in Italy, the little newspaper and tobacco shop which his mother
owned down on Seventh Avenue, and a hundred other personal details.
Archie had an insatiable curiosity about his fellow-man.

"Well done," said Archie.

"Sare?"

"The steak. Not too rare, you know."

"Very good, sare."

Archie looked at the waiter closely. His tone had been subdued and sad.
Of course, you don't expect a waiter to beam all over his face and give
three rousing cheers simply because you have asked him to bring you a
minute steak, but still there was something about Salvatore's manner
that disturbed Archie. The man appeared to have the pip. Whether he was
merely homesick and brooding on the lost delights of his sunny
native land, or whether his trouble was more definite, could only be
ascertained by enquiry. So Archie enquired.

"What's the matter, laddie?" he said sympathetically. "Something on your
mind?"

"Sare?"

"I say, there seems to be something on your mind. What's the trouble?"

The waiter shrugged his shoulders, as if indicating an unwillingness to
inflict his grievances on one of the tipping classes.

"Come on!" persisted Archie encouragingly. "All pals here. Barge alone,
old thing, and let's have it."

Salvatore, thus admonished, proceeded in a hurried undertone--with one
eye on the headwaiter--to lay bare his soul. What he said was not very
coherent, but Archie could make out enough of it to gather that it was a
sad story of excessive hours and insufficient pay. He mused awhile. The
waiter's hard case touched him.

"I'll tell you what," he said at last. "When jolly old Brewster conies
back to town--he's away just now--I'll take you along to him and we'll
beard the old boy in his den. I'll introduce you, and you get that
extract