The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-08-29
THE SWELL AND THE WAITER.
Cutting a Ridiculous Figure-Trying to
Catch the Eye of the Waiter.
fRrnnLIvn EAGLE

brooklyn Eagle.l
Of all the curious fashions that which
encourages young men to wear high silk
hats and shooting blouses in the streets of
New York is the most absurd. The av
erage cigarette smoking and spindle
legged young clerk is apparently never so
happy as when he can get on plated
blouse and bind it by belt around his
waist. The blouses are of dark blue, pep
per and salt, drab and sometimes almost
white in color, and are the most ridicu-
lous garments for city use imaginable.
They are accepted as the proper jacket
for shooting and touring in England, but
the Anglomaniac dudes believe that they
are fit for anything here. A high hat and
a short coat is bad enough in any instance,
but when a man wanders around In bust
ness hours in a beaver hat and blouse he
cuts about as ridiculous figure as he well
can.
One man who is particularly fond of
this style of attire is in the dry goods
business in Worth street He has suit
made of very light drab material. patent
leather pumps, red hose. plated blouse
and silk hat He thus goes about attend
ing to business wearing ballroom slip
pers, a hat intended for mourning wear
and a shooting jacket. He is pudgy,
fat and wabbly young person with scOwl
that is intended to be intensely naughty,
and ends by being weakly peevish.
He came into the Astor house dining
room on the second floor and strolled
down between the tables with an air of
ineiTable cOntentment His usual toilet
was variegated by the acquisition of large
red gloves. His mustache was waved and
an eyeglass dangled over the front of his
shooting blouse After staring at every
body in the room he sat down at one of
the tables near the window apparently
4, -,
Gus GERS which greeted his arrival on
every side.
He screwed the single glass to his eye.
picked up the bill of fare and read it by
the eye that was unincumbered by the
glass. The waiter was tall suave, bald.
dexterous and polite Alsatian. He bent
with an assumption of the most profound
respect over the young man. who awaited
his order He waited long while while
the guest scanned the prices marked OPP
POSite the various dishes. and then
Strengthening up moved to a distance
about ten feet away and stood looking at
the bowling swell before him. The swell
for such he evidently thought himself
motioned with his finger to the waiter.
but that functiOnary appeared not to see
him. He was looking about ten feet over
the guests head. Then the guest tried to
catch some other walters eye In vain.
They, too. all pretended not to see him.
Then he whistled as one would to dog,
but though it attracted the attention of
everybody in the room not waiter an
swered
Presently the big Alsatian moved over
to the table where the dry goods man sat,
smoothed the cloth and stepped away
again just as the "swell" began to tell
him what he wanted. There is no ques
ton that waiter can make it very I'M
comfortable for diner if he wishes to.
This particular waiter had laid himself
out to annoy the fat man in the shooting
jacket, and he met with extreme success.
He excited the admiration of all the other
walters by the dizziness with which he
hung around the mans table and yet
never gave him an opportunity to tell
him what he wanted, and when the con-
glomerate specimen of swelldom rose, dis
gusted. and stamped out of the room, the
business men who were dining there
smiled indulgently on the tall waiter and
did not feel like censuring him in the
least for his impertinence.