everything,—the tread of the carpets, the hang of the curtains, the clothes of the people, the sounds of the music, the mien of the waiters. Ali Baba did not illicitly enter the Cave of the Forty Robbers with a more profound bewilderment, a sharper curiosity.
Northcote followed his companion into one of the smaller and quieter but not the less gilded and luxurious rooms. Mr. Whitcomb, who even in his own person did not disdain the panoply of fashion, had the unconquerable nonchalance of bearing which is the first credential to the public respect.
"I want Jools," he said to the first waiter he met.
The waiter bowed low and said ingratiatingly, "Yes, sare." He darted away in quest of that personage without an attempt to maintain the few rags of dignity that attend his calling. There was, indeed, a strain of the magician in this wonderful Mr. Whitcomb. It would not have occurred to Northcote to use the formula "I want Jools," any more than it did to Ali Baba to cry "Open Sesame!" at the portals of the cave of the Forty Robbers.
Jools was the head waiter, a man of the first distinction, with a small imperial, the envy and the proud despair of all the compatriots who shared his exile in an alien country. It had the choice perfection which art is sometimes able to superimpose upon nature. Jools was of slight, even mean, physique, but he had the ease of bearing which comes of having been somebody for several generations. He held the key to the finest cellar in London, as his father before him had held the key to the finest cellar of Paris, and his grandfather of
