suggests that I read you Somebody's Luggage, which is all about a head
waiter. I have often wished I could get a job as a waiter or a bus
boy, just to learn if there really are any such head waiters nowadays.
You know there are all sorts of jobs I'd like to have, just to fructify
my knowledge of human nature and find out whether life is really as
good as literature. I'd love to be a waiter, a barber, a
floorwalker----"

"Roger, my dear," said Helen, "why don't you get on with the reading?"

Roger knocked out his pipe, turned Bock out of his chair, and sat down
with infinite relish to read the memorable character sketch of
Christopher, the head waiter, which is dear to every lover of taverns.
"The writer of these humble lines being a Waiter," he began. The
knitting needles flashed with diligence, and the dog by the fender
stretched himself out in the luxuriant vacancy of mind only known to
dogs surrounded by a happy group of their friends. And Roger, enjoying
himself enormously, and particularly pleased by the chuckles of his
audience, was approaching the ever-delightful items of the coffee-room
bill which is to be found about ten pages on in the first chapter--how
sad it is that hotel bills are not so rendered in these times--when the
bell in the shop clanged. Picking up his pipe and matchbox, and
grumbling "It's always the way," he hurried out of the room.

He was agreeably surprised to find that his caller was the young
advertising man, Aubrey Gilbert.

"Hullo!" he said. "I've been saving something for you. It's a
quotation from Joseph Conrad about advertising."

"Good enough," said Aubrey. "And I've got something for you. You were
so nice to me the other evening I took the liberty of bringing you
round some tobacco. Here's a tin of Blue-Eyed Mixture, it's my
favourite. I hope you'll like it."

"Bully for you. Perhaps I ought to let you off the Conrad quotation
since you're so kind."

"Not a bit. I suppose it's a knock. Shoot!" The bookseller led the
way back to his desk, where he rummaged among the litter and finally
found a scrap of paper on which he had written:

Being myself animated by feelings of affection toward my fellowmen, I
am saddened by the modern system of advertising. Whatever evidence it
offers of enterprise, ingenuity, impudence, and resource in certain
individuals, it proves to my mind the wide prevalence of that form of
mental degradation which is called gullibility.