Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870
THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD.
AN ADAPTATION.
BY ORPHEUS C. KERR
CHAPTER XI.--(Continued.)
BLADAMS ushered in two waiters--one Irish and one German--who wore thatlook of blended long-suffering and extreme weariness of everythingeatable, which, in this country, seems inevitably characteristic of theleast personal agency in the serving of meals. (There may be lands inwhich the not essentially revolting art of cookery can be practicedwithout engendering irritable gloom in the bosoms of its practitioners,and the spreading of tables does not necessarily entail upon the actorstherein a despondency almost sinister; but the American kitchen is thehome of beings who never laugh, save in that sardonic bitterness ofspirit which grimly mocks the climax of human endurance in the burningof the soup; and the waiter of the American dining-room can scarcelyplace a dish upon the board without making it eloquent of a blightedexistence.) Having dashed the stews upon the reading-table before thefire, and rescued a drowning fly[1] from one of them with his leastappetizing thumb-nail, the melancholy Irish attendant polished thespoons with his pocket-handkerchief and hurled them on either side ofthe plates. Perceiving that his German associate, in listlessly throwingthe mugs of ale upon the table, had spilled some of the liquid, hehurriedly wiped the stain away with EDWIN DROOD'S worsted muffler, anddried the sides of the glasses upon the napkin intended for Mr. DIBBLE'Suse. There was something of the wild resources of despair, too, in thisman's frequent ghostly dispatch of the German after articles forgottenin the first trip, such as another cracker, the cover of thepepper-cruet, the salt, and one more pinch of butter; and so greatly didhis apparent dejection of soul increase as each supplementary luxuryarrived and was recklessly slammed into its place, that, upon finallyretiring from the room with his associate, his utter hopelessness ofaspect gave little suggestion of the future proud political prefermentto which, by virtue of his low estate and foreign birth, he wasassuredly destined.
[Footnote 1: In anticipation of any critical objection to theintroduction of a living fly in December, the Adapter begs leave tosuspect than an anachronism is always legitimate in a work of fictionwhen a point is to be made. Thus, in Chapter VIII of the inimitable"NICHOLAS NICKLEBY," Mr. SQUEERS tells NICHOLAS that morning has come,"and ready iced, too;" and that "the pump's froze," while, only afew pages later, in the same chapter, one of Mr. SQUEERS' scholars isspoken of as "weeding the garden."]
The whole scene had been a reproachful commentary upon the stiffAmerican system of discouraging waiters from making remarks upon theweather, inquiring the cost of one's new coat, conferring with one uponthe general prospects of his business for the season, or from indulgingin any of the various light conversational diversions whereby barbers,Fulton street tailors, and other depressed gymnasts, are occasionallyand wholesomely relieved from the misery of brooding over theirequally dispiriting avocations.
After the departure of