He laughed again, but he said he was bound to be a waiter and if I couldn’t help him he’d have to hunt up the other portion of the proprietor.  So I told him to stay where he was, and I went off and found Peter T. You’d ought to seen Peter stare when we hove in sight of the candidate.

“Thunder!” says he.  “Is this Exhibit One, Barzilla?  Where’d you pick up the Chinese giant?”

I done the polite, mentioning Brown’s name, hesitating on t’other chap’s.

“Er-Jones,” says the human lighthouse.  “Er-yes; Jones.”

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Jones,” says Peter.  “So you want to be a waiter, do you?  For how much per?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  I’ll begin at the bottom, being a green hand.  Twenty a week or so; whatever you’re accustomed to paying.”

Brown choked.  “The figure’s all right,” he says, “only it covers a month down here.”

“Right!” says Jones, not a bit shook up.  “A month goes.”

Peter stepped back and looked him over, beginning with the tan shoes and ending with the whirligig hat.

“Jonesy,” says he, finally, “you’re on.  Take him to the servants’ quarters, Wingate.”

A little later, when I had the chance and had Brown alone, I says to him: 

“Peter,” says I, “for the land sakes what did you hire the emperor for?  A blind man could see he wa’n’t no waiter.  And we don’t need him anyhow; no more’n a cat needs three tails.  Why—­”

But he was back at me before I could wink.  “Need him?” he says.  “Why, Barzilla, we need him more than the old Harry needs a conscience.  Take a bird’s-eye view of him!  Size him up!  He puts all the rest of the Greek statues ten miles in the shade.  If I could only manage to get his picture in the papers we’d have all the romantic old maids in Boston down here inside of a week; and there’s enough of them to keep one hotel going till judgment.  Need him?  Whew!”

Next morning we was at the breakfast-table in my branch establishment, me and Mabel and the five boarders.  All hands was doing their best to start a famine in the fruit market, and Dr. Blatt was waving a banana and cheering us with a yarn about an old lady that his Burdock Bitters had h’isted bodily out of the tomb.  He was at the most exciting part, the bitters and the undertaker coming down the last lap neck and neck, and an even bet who’d win the patient, when the kitchen door opens and in marches the waiter with the tray full of dishes of “cereal.”  Seems to me ’twas chopped hay we had that morning—­either that or shavings; I always get them breakfast foods mixed up.

But ’twa’n’t the hay that made everybody set up and take notice.  ’Twas the waiter himself.  Our regular steward was a spindling little critter with curls and eye-glasses who answered to the hail of “Percy.”  This fellow clogged up the scenery like a pet elephant, and was down in the shipping list as “Jones.”