As for the children, they love him; he romps with them, and does
conjuring tricks, and warbles innumerable songs. That man gets through
more in one day than the Prime Minister of England--and, between you
and me, I believe he is fully as capable--and yet he finds time to
write a letter to his old mother at Hamburg--I have seen him do it.
Perhaps it was about the cigars! The only people who hate ADOLF are
the Under-Waiters; he rules them with a rod of iron, marshalling their
heated battalions at _table d'hote_, and plundering them of their
sweethearts; if he breaks anything (hearts included), it is they who
have to pay. It is ADOLF's only weakness--he is a bully to underlings
of his own trade. But then he has been an Under-Waiter once himself,
and suffering brutalises; however, he is outside the sphere of
morality, and I could pardon him almost anything.
From time to time his fascinations induce an Englishman or
Englishwoman to take this treasure home as a servant. But ADOLF in
livery, and ADOLF with his magic order-book, are two very different
people. Little things are missing; he becomes quarrelsome; the
gipsy-spirit returns--and he is off again, blithe as ever, on his
travels.
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