Just opposite him, at the hotel side of
the terrace, there is a garden seat of the ordinary esplanade pattern.
Access to the hotel for visitors is by an entrance in the middle of its
facade, reached by a couple of steps on a broad square of raised
pavement. Nearer the parapet there lurks a way to the kitchen, masked
by a little trellis porch. The table at which the waiter is occupied is
a long one, set across the terrace with covers and chairs for five, two
at each side and one at the end next the hotel. Against the parapet
another table is prepared as a buffet to serve from.
The waiter is a remarkable person in his way. A silky old man,
white-haired and delicate looking, but so cheerful and contented that in
his encouraging presence ambition stands rebuked as vulgarity, and
imagination as treason to the abounding sufficiency and interest of the
actual. He has a certain expression peculiar to men who have been
extraordinarily successful in their calling, and who, whilst aware of
the vanity of success, are untouched by envy.
The gentleman at the iron table is not dressed for the seaside. He
wears his London frock coat and gloves; and his tall silk hat is on the
table beside the sugar bowl. The excellent condition and quality of
these garments, the gold-rimmed folding spectacles through which he is
reading the Standard, and the Times at his elbow overlaying the local
paper, all testify to his respectability.
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