I Served the King of England Read Online Free PDF

at once,
     and I heard the water splashing into his stomach like rainwater down a drainpipe and
     into a cistern, and when he turned onto his side, you could actually hear the water
     shifting to find its proper level.
    I never liked the salesmen who sold food and margarine and kitchen
     utensils. They would bring their own food with them and eat it in their rooms, and some
     of them even brought little camp stoves that ran on alcohol, and they’d make
     potato soup in their rooms and throw the peels under the bed and expect us to polish
     their shoes for nothing, and then when they were checking out they’d give me a
     company lapel pin for a tip, and for that I had the privilege of carrying a crate of
     yeast out to the car for them, becausethey’d bring the yeast
     from the wholesaler they represented and then try to sell it on their rounds when the
     occasion arose. Some of the salesmen had so many suitcases with them, it looked as if
     they’d brought all the goods they expected to sell that week. Others were
     practically empty-handed. Whenever I saw a traveling salesman arrive with no suitcases,
     I was curious to find out exactly what he was selling. It always turned out to be
     something surprising. For example, one of them took orders for wrapping paper and paper
     bags, and he carried his samples behind his handkerchief in the breast pocket of his
     coat. Another one carried only a yo-yo and a top in his briefcase, which never left his
     side—the order forms were in his pocket—and he’d walk through town
     playing with the yo-yo or the top and go into a store, still playing with it, and the
     toy-and-notions merchant would leave the small-goods salesman standing there and walk
     over as if in a dream and reach out for the yo-yo and the top, or whatever was popular
     just then, and he’d say, How many dozen, how many gross can you deliver? The
     salesman would agree to twenty dozen and, if the merchant insisted, add a dozen or so
     more. Another season it would be a foam-rubber ball, and there’d be a salesman
     tossing it up and down on the train, on the street, and then in the shops, and the
     merchant would approach him as if hypnotized, watching the ball go up to the ceiling,
     back down into his hand, back up, then down, and he’d say, How many dozen, how
     many gross can you leave me? I never liked these seasonal salesmen, and the maître
     d’ didn’t either. They were one-shot men, real warm-water salesmen, and we
     could see from the moment they set foot in the restaurant that they were the kind who
     would rathereat their fill and then leave through the window
     without paying, which happened to us a few times. The nicest salesman who ever stayed
     with us was the Rubber King, the one who supplied the chemist’s shops with those
     intimate rubber goods that people are ashamed to ask for. He represented the Primeros
     firm, and he always had some novelty items with him whenever he came. The regulars would
     invite him to sit at their table, because something would always happen that was
     unpleasant for one of them but hilarious for the rest, and the salesman would pass
     around condoms of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Though I was just a busboy, I was
     surprised and disgusted by our regulars, who seemed so gentlemanly on the street but
     when they started carrying on at the table they were like kittens, and sometimes as
     repulsive and ridiculous as monkeys. Whenever the Rubber King was there, they’d
     slip a Primeros into someone’s food—under the dumplings or some such
     place—and when the victim turned his dumpling over they’d all roar with
     laughter, knowing that before the month was out the same thing would happen to them.
     They all loved playing practical jokes on each other, like Mr. Živnostek, who made
     false teeth and was always dropping loose teeth or dentures into someone’s beer.
     Once he slipped his own teeth into his neighbor’s coffee, but the neighbor