title: The Diners Out Handbook: A Pocket Handbook on the Manners and Customs of Society Functions (Old House)
author:  Alfred H. Miles 
description: <b>Alfred Henry Miles</b>was a prolific Victorian era author, editor, anthologist, journalist, composer and lecturer.
zlib_text: STORIES
  1
  STORIES
  by English Authors in London
  
  STORIES
  2
  THE INCONSIDERATE WAITER
  BY J. M. BARRIE
  Frequently I have to ask myself in the street for the name of the man I
  bowed to just now, and then, before I can answer, the wind of the first
  corner blows him from my memory. I have a theory, however, that those
  puzzling faces, which pass before I can see who cut the coat, all belong to
  club waiters.
  Until William forced his affairs upon me that was all I did know of the
  private life of waiters, though I have been in the club for twenty years. I
  was even unaware whether they slept downstairs or had their own homes;
  nor had I the interest to inquire of other members, nor they the knowledge
  to inform me. I hold that this sort of people should be fed and clothed and
  given airing and wives and children, and I subscribe yearly, I believe for
  these purposes; but to come into closer relation with waiters is bad form;
  they are club fittings, and William should have kept his distress to himself,