which I think is from Shakespeare.
There was hundreds and dozens of waiters all totally black teeming
about the room, and all along the floor stood a great tabel like in
pictures of the last supper. Many smart people sat rather sprawly at
it and listened to the words of a man very similar looking to those
Mr. Withersq and Selia had beholded the night before at the party. And
meanwhile they chewed their food. Also several young ladys some
soberly in round black specs but some also a bit dashing with scarlet
lips and several oldish ones too, all lolled on the table on elbows
and smoking like chimneys.
As our coupel entered they turned of course and had a good stare but
said nothing, not knowing them. Nothing abashed Mr. Withersq beckoned
a couple of black waiters to bring the food list which they did.
He chose a good few of the dearest things, trusting to be correct, and
they sat down at the foot of the table, hoping to chum up quickly.
The waiters brought first some halfs of fruits like lemons only
bigger on plates but Selia hated hers and popt it under the tabel.
“Bring me some grilled kidneys and look sharp,” she commanded very
grandly.
Now all this time she and Mr. Withersq had been shuffling on their
seats and making a few friendly grimaces toward the large party lower
down the tabel, and doing such tricks as half smiles and looking as if
they were going to nod in a tick. Yet the cold hump was all they got
from that crowd gathered around the faint-looking man in the centre.
“You cant hardly say we’re making much of a hit here,” said Selia
crossly: “You should have said your unckle Burt was dead. Try and get
the nasty stuck up lot to talk, wont you?”
So at this Mr. Withersq mustered his heart up a bit and rapt on the
tabel with a spoon until all looked towards him. “Hallo” he said to
them all. “My unckle Burt being dead has left me a few millions so
why not be sports and chum up, eh?”
Oh what an icy bath our little friends then got from the stares of
those ladys and men.
“I am Boom,” said the faint-looking man stroking his long hair with
unction. “I do not think you are one of us. You do not understand.”
“O come!” cried our hero, getting his back up a bit although Selia was
tramping on his feet under the festive board’s legs. “We are quite new
to the game, I know, but for all that we know a countess or two. Be a
sport old chappy. Let me tell the blackie to get you a coffee if you
dont care for anything stronger.”
He thought those were two safe things to say, but he was also puzzeled
by their looks towards him and more towards Selia whose rayment was so
utterly not like theirs, and more so that her white robe was a bit
dashed-looking with the rough night she had had.
“Ah,” cried the young ladies in a voice like pidgeons, and the old
ladies and the man. “How balderdash!” And they turned their faces
away.
Selia let fall a scalding tear and ordered some pooched eggs to keep
up her strength. At which Mr. Boom and his attending ladies got up
hortily and stamped out very conseated which upset our couple largely.
“Bear up sir,” cried a black waiter kindly. “It is only their way
being a school of poetry.”
“Oh,” cried Selia blowing her nose, “I would like to go to such a
school, wouldnt you, Harold, though not to their nasty stuck up one,
eh?”
“In sooth, yes,” he answered with effervessence. “It would be very
useful to us I am sure, to deal with such strumpets and aristocracy.”
“Ah, sir, if you will excuse me,” put in the waiter now beaming like a
holy angel with his sooty features. “You will soon be all right.
There are just the little matters like eating and that which are very
catchy and the right words to say.”
“You see this lot thats just gone out are all very artful people, who
speak to no one but print little books of their poems all the while,
and wont sell them to anybody at all, and that makes them very
slippery customers to deal with, as no one knows what they are really
at, and mean too,” he added, looking beneath their plates where a
solitary sixpence graced the deserted board.
“Take that my good negro” cried Mr. Withersq slipping a green paper
money in his quaintly coloured palm.
So when they had looked up an address in the book, they set out for a
nice school where to learn poetry and so climb.