In the course of ten minutes the waiter cleared the table and spread a fresh cloth. "'Ave you hordered breakfast, sir?"
"No! Bring me mutton chops, coffee, and boiled eggs, and hot biscuit, for two."
"Beg pardon, sir; chops, heggs, coffee--a--biscuits, aren't any _biscuits_, sir; send out and get some, sir."
Biscuits. I reflected; these benighted Britons don't understand what an American hot biscuit is. "No biscuits! Well, muffins, then."
"Muffins, sir; yes, sir;" and he hastened away.
We waited five, ten, fifteen minutes; no breakfast. One party at another table, who were waiting when we came in, were served with their breakfast; in five minutes more a fresh plate of muffins to another party; five more, and the waiter came to our table, put on two silver forks, a salt-cellar, and castor, and smoothed out some invisible wrinkles in the table linen, and went away; five minutes more, and he was hustling among some knives at a sideboard.
"Yes, sir; d'reckly, sir; chops most ready, sir."
Chops, always call 'em chops; never call for a _mutton_ chop in England; the word is superfluous, and stamps you as an untravelled, inexperienced Yankee at once.
Five minutes more, and he appeared, bearing a tray with the breakfast, just thirty-five minutes after the order had been given for it. How long would a hotel in America be patronized that made its guest wait one half that time for four times as elaborate a repast?
I soon learned how to manage this matter better, especially as there are no printed bills of fare, and the list comprises a very few standard dishes. My plan was, on first rising in the morning, to write my order for breakfast on a scrap of paper, ring for the chambermaid, hand it to her with instructions to have that breakfast ready in the ladies' coffee-room directly.
The English "directly" signifies the "right away" of America, or, more correctly, immediately.
In half an hour afterwards, when we descended, the waiter, whose memory had been strengthened by the judicious investment of a shilling, had the cloth laid, and met us with, "Breakfast d'reckly, sir; Number 19; yes, sir."
The breakfast, when it _did_ come, was perfect; the coffee or tea excellent, pure and unadulterated; the chops,--not those American affairs with one bite of meat the size of half a dollar, tough and ill cooked, but large as the palm of one's hand,--cooked as they can only be cooked in England; the muffins hot and smoking; the eggs fresh and excellent; so that the old-fashioned framed engravings, mahogany furniture, cramped quarters, and style of the past were forgotten in the appeal to that god of the Englishman, the stomach.