You have come to England
with an uncle, who has taken a small restaurant in Soho, and who
proposes to engage you as head-waiter. You will be enrolled as a member
of the Waiters' Union, as a matter of course; but when that has been
arranged you write on a slip of paper these words, and pass them to Mr.
Hirsch--'I, too, have a rifle'!"
I was beginning to get interested.
"'I, too, have a rifle,'" I repeated. "Yes! I can remember that; but I
shall be talking like a poll-parrot for I shan't have the least idea what
it means."
"You need not know much," Guest answered. "Those words are your passport
into the No. 1 Branch of the Waiters' Union, whose committee, by the bye
meet at the Cafe Suisse. If you are asked why you wish to join, you need
only say because you are a German!"
"Right," I answered. "I'll get into the clothes."
Guest gave me a few more instructions while I was changing, and by four
o'clock punctually I opened the swing door of No. 13, Old Compton Street.
The place consisted of a waiting-room, very bare and very dirty; a
counter, behind which two or three clerks were very busy writing in
ponderous, well-worn ledgers, and an inner door.
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