years in
private families and only six years in hotels. She wished she'd never
seen the inside of a hotel.

That same night at the supper table the subject came up again before
an entirely different crowd. Three at the table had tried domestic
service. Never again! Why? Always the answer was the same. "Aw, it's
the feeling of freedom ya never get there, and ya do get it in a
hotel." One sweet gray-haired woman told of how she had worked some
years as cook in a swell family where they kept lots of servants. She
got grand wages, and naively she added, you get a chance to make lots
on the side, o' course. I asked her if she meant tips from guests. Oh
no! She meant what you made off tradespeople. Don't you see, if you
got the butcher bill up so high, you got so much off the butcher, and
the same with the grocer and the rest. She had a sister not cooking
long who made over one hundred dollars a month, counting what she got
off tradespeople. It is a perfectly accepted way of doing, mentioned
with no concern.

But on the whole, that supper table agreed that domestic service was a
good deal like matrimony. If you got a good family, all right; but how
many good families were there in the world? One woman spoke of working
where they'd made a door mat of her. Barely did she have food enough
to eat. There were four in the family. When they had chops the lady of
the house ordered just four, which meant she who cooked the chops got
none.

After lunch this full Thursday I rushed to assist Mary. I loved going
down the stairs into our hot scurry of excitement. Indeed, it was
seeing behind the scenes. And always the friendly nods from everyone,
even though the waiters especially looked ready to expire in pools of
perspiration. At Monsieur Le Bon Chef's counter some sticky waiter had
ordered a roast-beef sandwich. The heat had made him skeptical. "Call
that beef?" The waiter next him glared at him with a chuckle. "An'
must we then always lead in the cow for you to see?" A large Irishman
breezed up to my Bon Chef. "Two beef a la modes. Make it snappy,
chief. Party's in a hurry. Has to catch the five-thirty train"--this
at one o'clock. Everyone good-natured, and the perspiration literally
rolling off them.

Most of the waiters were Irish. One of them was a regular dude--such
immaculateness never was. He was the funny man of the place, and
showed off for my special benefit, for I made no bones of the fact
that he amused me highly. He w