Polly Sparkes had a father.  That Mr. Sparkes still lived was not known to the outer circles of Polly’s acquaintance; she never spoke of her family, and it was not easy to think of Polly in the filial relation.  For some years she had lived in complete independence, now and then exchanging a letter with her parent, but seeing him rarely.  Not that they were on ill terms, unpleasantness of that kind had been avoided by their satisfaction in living apart.  Polly sometimes wished she had a father “to be proud of”—­a sufficiently intelligible phrase on Polly’s lips; but for the rest she thought of him with tolerance as a good, silly sort of man, who “couldn’t help himself”—­that is to say, could not help being what he was.

And Mr. Sparkes was a waiter, had been a waiter for some thirty years, and would probably pursue the calling as long as he was fit for it.  In this fact he saw nothing to be ashamed of.  It had never occurred to him that anyone could or should be ashamed of the position; nevertheless, Mr. Sparkes was a disappointed, even an embittered, man; and that for a subtle reason, which did credit to his sensibility.

All his life he had been employed at Chaffey’s.  As a boy of ten he joined Chaffey’s in the capacity of plate washer; zeal and conduct promoted him, and seniority made him at length head waiter.  In those days Chaffey’s was an eating-house of the old kind, one long room with “boxes”; beef its staple dish, its drink a sound porter at twopence a pint.  How many thousand times had Mr. Sparkes shouted the order “One ally-mode!” The chief, almost the only, variant was “One ’ot!” which signified a cut from the boiled round, served of course with carrots and potatoes, remarkable for their excellence.  Midday dinner was the only meal recognized at Chaffey’s; from twelve to half-past two the press of business kept everyone breathless and perspiring.  Before and after these hours little if anything was looked for, and at four o’clock the establishment closed its doors.

But it came to pass that the proprietor of Chaffey’s died, and the business fell into the hands of a young man with new ideas.  Within a few months Chaffey’s underwent a transformation; it was pulled down, rebuilt, enlarged, beautified; nothing left of its old self but the name.  In place of the homely eating-house there stood a large hall, painted and gilded and set about with mirrors, furnished with marble tables and cane-bottomed chairs—­to all appearances a restaurant on the France-Italian pattern.  Yet Chaffey’s remained English, flagrantly English, in its viands and its waiters.  The new proprietor aimed at combining foreign glitter with the prices and the entertainment acceptable to a public of small means.  Moreover, he prospered.  The doors were now open from nine o’clock in the morning to twelve at night.  There was a bar for the supply of alcoholic drinks—­the traditional porter had always been fetched from a neighbouring house—­and frivolities such as tea and coffee were in constant demand.