n't heard anything he must have been struck deaf,
and I was just on the point of jumping up and shouting to him, "Fly,
before the walls and roof come down upon us!" when that awful noise
occurred again. My blood stood frigid in my veins, and as I started
back I saw before me a waiter, his face ashy pale, and his knees
bending beneath him. Some people near us were half getting up from
their chairs, and I pushed back and looked at Jone again, who had not
moved except that his mouth was open. Then I knew what it was that I
thought was an earthquake--it was Jone giving an order to the waiter.

[Illustration: Jone giving an order]

I bit my lips and sat silent; the people around kept on looking at us,
and the poor man who was receiving the shock stood trembling like a
leaf. When the volcanic disturbance, so to speak, was over, the waiter
bowed himself, as if he had been a heathen in a temple, and gasping,
"Yes, sir, immediate," glided unevenly away. He hadn't waited on us
before, and little thought, when he was going to stride proudly pass
our table, what a double-loaded Vesuvius was sitting in Jone's chair. I
leaned over the table and said to Jone that if he would stick to that
we could rent a bishopric if we wanted to, and I was so proud I could
have patted him on the back. Well, after that we had no more trouble
about being waited on, for that waiter of ours went about as if he had
his neck bared for the fatal stroke and Jone was holding the cimeter.

The head waiter came to us before we was done dinner and asked if we
had everything we wanted and if that table suited us, because if it did
we could always have it. To which Jone distantly thundered that if he
would see that it always had a clean tablecloth it would do well
enough.

[Illustration: The Carver]

Even the man who stood at the big table in the middle of the room and
carved the cold meats, with his hair parted in the middle, and who
looked as if he were saying to himself, as with a bland dexterity and
tastefulness he laid each slice upon its plate, "Now, then, the
socialistic movement in Paris is arrested for the time being, and here
again I put an end to the hopes of Russia getting to the sea through
Afghanistan, and now I carefully spread contentment over the minds of
all them riotous Welsh miners," even he turned around and bowed to us
as we passed him, and once sent a waiter to ask if we'd like a little
bit of potted beef, which was particularly good th