On the following morning Bindle was duly enrolled as a waiter at Napolini's. He soon discovered that, whatever the privileges and perquisites of the fully-experienced waiter, the part of the novice was one of thorns rather than of roses. He was attached as a.s.sistant to a diminutive Italian, with a fierce upward-brushed moustache.

Bindle had not been three minutes under his direction before he precipitated a crisis that almost ended in open warfare.

"Wot's your name, ole son?" he enquired. "Mine's Bindle--Joseph Bindle."

"Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino," replied the Italian with astonishing rapidity.

"Is it really?" remarked Bindle, examining his chief with interest, as he proceeded deftly to lay a table. "Sounds like a machine-gun, don't it?" Then after a pause he remarked quite innocently, "Look 'ere, ole sport, I'll call you Kayser."

In a flash Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino turned upon Bindle, his moustache bristling like the spines of a wild-boar, and from his lips poured a pa.s.sionate stream of Southern invective.

Unable to understand a word of the burning phrases of reproach that eddied and flowed about him, Bindle merely stared. There was a patter of feet from all parts of the long dining-room, and soon he was the centre of an angry crowd of excited gesticulating waiters, with Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino screaming his fury in the centre.

"Hi!" called Bindle to Scratcher, who appeared through the service-door, just as matters seemed about to break into open violence. "'Ere! Scratcher, wot's up? Call 'im orf."

"Wot did you call 'im, Joe?" enquired Scratcher, pushing his way through the crowd.

"I asked 'is name, an' then 'e went off like the 'mad minute,' so I said I'd call 'im 'Kayser,' because of 'is whiskers."

At the repet.i.tion of the obnoxious word, Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino shook his fist in Bindle's face, and screamed more hysterically than ever. He was white to the lips, at the corners of his mouth two little points of white foam had collected, and his eyes blinked with the rapidity of a cinematograph film.

With the aid of three other waiters, Scratcher succeeded in restoring peace. Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino's fortissimo reproaches were reduced to piano murmurs by the explanation that Bindle meant no harm, added to which Bindle apologised.

"Look 'ere," he said, genuinely regretful at the effect of his remark, "'ow was I to know that you was that sensitive, you lookin' so fierce too."

The arrival of one of the superintendents put an end to the dispute; but it was obvious that Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino nourished in his heart a deep resentment against Bindle for his unintentioned insult.

"Fancy 'im takin' on like that," muttered Bindle, as he strove to adjust a white tablecloth so that it hung in equal folds on all sides of the table. "Funny things foreigners, as 'uffy as birds, they are."

Turning to Scratcher, who was pa.s.sing at the moment, he enquired, "Wot the 'ell am I a-goin' to call 'im?"

"Call who?" enquired Scratcher, his mouth full of something.

Bindle looked about warily. "Ole Kayser," he whispered. "'E's that sensitive. Explodes if you looks at 'im, 'e does."

Scratcher worked hard to reduce the contents of his mouth to conversational proportions.

"I can't never remember 'is name," continued Bindle. "Went off like a rattle it did."

"Don't know 'is name myself," said Scratcher after a gigantic swallow.

"'E's new."

"Wouldn't 'elp you much, ole son, if you did know it," said Bindle with conviction. "Seemed to me like a patent gargle. Never 'eard anythink like it."

"'Ere!" said Bindle to Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino, who was darting past on his way to another table. The Italian paused, hatred smouldering in his dark eyes.

"I can't remember that name o' yours, ole sport," said Bindle. "Sorry, but I ain't a gramophone. Wot 'ave I got to call you?"

"Call me sair," replied Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino with dignity.

"Call you wot?" cried Bindle indignantly. "Call you wot?"

"Call me sair," repeated the Italian.

"Me call a foreigner 'sir!'" cried Bindle. "Now ain't you the funniest ole 'Uggins."

Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino cast upon Bindle a look of consuming hatred.

"Look 'ere," remarked Bindle cheerfully, "if you goes about a-lookin'

like that, you'll spoil the good impression them whiskers make."

Murder flashed in the eyes of the Italian, as he ground out a paralysing oath in his own tongue.

"There's a-goin' to be trouble between me an' ole 'Okey-Pokey.

Pleasant sort o' cove to 'ave about the 'ouse."

Customers began to drift in, and soon Bindle was kept busy fetching and carrying for Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino, who by every means in his power strove to give expression to the hatred of Bindle that was burning in his soul.

At the end of the first day,--it was in reality the early hours of the next morning,--as Bindle with Scratcher walked from Napolini's to the Tube, he remarked, "Well, I ain't 'ungry, though I could drink a deal more; still I says nothink about that; but as for tips, well, ole 'Okey-Pokey's pocketed every bloomin' penny. When I asked him to divvy up fair, 'e started that machine-gun in 'is tummy, rolled 'is eyes, an' seemed to be tryin' to tell me wot a great likin' 'e'd taken to me. One o' these days somethink's goin' to 'appen to 'im," added Bindle prophetically. "'E ain't no sport, any'ow."

"Wot's 'e done?" enquired Scratcher.

"I offered to fight 'im for the tips, an' all 'e did was to turn on 'is rattle;" and Bindle winked at the girl-conductor, who clanged the train-gates behind him.

For nearly a week Bindle continued to work thirteen hours a day, satisfying the hunger of others and quenching alien thirsts. Thanks to judicious hints from Scratcher, at the same time he found means of ministering to his own requirements. He tasted new and strange foods; but of all his discoveries in the realm of dietetics, curried prawns held pride of place. More than one customer looked anxiously into the dark brown liquid, curious as to what had become of the blunt-pointed crescents; but, disliking the fuss attending complaint, he ascribed the reduction in their number to the activities of the Food Controller.

When, as occasionally happened in the absence of his chief, Bindle came into direct contact with a customer and received an order, he invariably found himself utterly at a loss.

"Bouillabaisse de Ma.r.s.eilles, pommes sautees," called out one customer. Bindle, who was hurrying past, came to a dead stop and regarded him with interest.

"D'you mind sayin' that again, sir," he remarked.

"Bouillabaisse de Ma.r.s.eilles, pommes sautees," repeated the customer.

"Well, I'm blowed!" was Bindle's comment.

The customer stared, but before he had time to reply Bindle was unceremoniously pushed aside by Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino, who, pad in hand, bent over the customer with servile intentness.

"Wot did 'e mean? Was 'e tellin' me 'is name?" enquired Bindle of a lath-like youth, with frizzy hair and a face incapable of expressing anything beyond a meaningless grin. It was Scratcher, however, who told the puzzled Bindle that the customer had been ordering lunch and not divulging his ident.i.ty.

"Bullybase de Marsales pumsortay is things to eat, Joe," he explained; "you got to learn the mane-yu."

"Well, I'm blowed!" was Bindle's sole comment. "Fancy people eatin'

things with names like that." He followed Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino towards the "service" regions in response to an imperious motion of his dark, well-greased head.

When Bindle returned to the dining-room, after listening to the unintelligible rebukes of his immediate superior, he found himself beckoned to the side of the customer whose wants he had found himself unable to comprehend.

"New to this job?" he enquired.

"You've 'it it, sir," was Bindle's reply. "New _as_ new. I'm in the furniture-movin' line myself; but Scratcher told me this 'ere was a soft job, an' so I took it on. 'E didn't happen to mention 'Okey-Pokey 'owever."