1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

THE DRINKS OF DICKENS 213 decades. A brandy-and-soda was an unknown fact during the Dickens period ; simply because, although there was plenty of brandy, the true virtues of soda-water had not been discovered. Moreover, nobody was known to call for a gin- and-bitters, or a sherry-and-angostura; whikt cocktails and cobblers are mentioned only in the American chapters of Martin Chnzzlewit. Ales and beers were known by various fantastic names during the first half of the present century, when men knew not " four-'alf" nor "bitter- six " ; thus we have little David Copperfield gravely asking for. a glass of the " Genuine Stunning," whilst Mrs. Gamp was unable to fulfil her arduous duties satisfactorily without a generous allowance of " the Brighton old Tipper." But to the books themselves. And commen cing with David Copperfield—who is provided with the heart, feelings, and understanding of the great novelist himself—I make my first pause at the waiter at the Yarmouth hotel. I don't like that waiter, either as a man or a waiter ; and his portrait by " Phiz " suggests a Cheap Jack at a fair, or a barber, rather than a coffee-room attendant. As a boy, I always looked up to a waiter as a benefactor—a species of Santa Glaus, and not as a marauding varlet who would probably despoil me of my lawful share of the banquet and then lie about the incident to the landlady. And when this rascal pleads that he " lives on broken wittles, and sleeps on the coals," I lose patience with him. A waiter who could rob a poor boy of his beer