Free Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

had other work in
    prospect—could I be engaged for a fortnight? But at that the
    CHEF DU PERSONNEL shrugged his shoulders and said
    that the hotel only engaged men by the month. Evidently I
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    had lost my chance of a job.
    Boris, by arrangement, was waiting for me in the Arcade
    of the Rue de Rivoli. When I told him what had happened,
    he was furious. For the first time since I had known him he
    forgot his manners and called me a fool.
    ‘Idiot! Species of idiot! What’s the good of my finding you
    a job when you go and chuck it up the next moment? How
    could you be such a fool as to mention the other restaurant?
    You’d only to promise you would work for a month.’
    ‘It seemed more honest to say I might have to leave,’ I
    objected.
    ‘Honest! Honest! Who ever heard of a PLONGEUR be-
    ing honest? MON AMI’ —suddenly he seized my lapel and
    spoke very earnestly—‘MON AMI, you have worked here all
    day. You see what hotel work is like. Do you think a PLON-
    GEUR can afford a sense of honour?’
    ‘No, perhaps not.’
    ‘Well, then, go back quickly and tell the CHEF DU PER-
    SONNEL you are quite ready to work for a month. Say you
    will throw the other job over. Then, when our restaurant
    opens, we have only to walk out.’
    ‘But what about my wages if I break my contract?
    ‘Boris banged his stick on the pavement and cried out
    at such stupidity. ‘Ask to be paid by the day, then you won’t
    lose a sou. Do you suppose they would prosecute a PLON-
    GEUR for breaking Us contract? A PLONGEUR is too low
    to be prosecuted.’
    I hurried back, found the CHEF DU PERSONNEL, and
    told him that I would work for a month, whereat he signed

    Down and Out in Paris and London
    me on. Ibis was my first lesson in PLONGEUR morality.
    Later I realized how foolish it had been to have any scruples,
    for the big hotels are quite merciless towards their employ-
    ees. They engage or discharge men as the work demands,
    and they all sack ten per cent or more of their staff when the
    season is over. Nor have they any difficulty in replacing a
    man who leaves at short notice, for Paris is thronged by ho-
    tel employees out of work.
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    XI
    As it turned out, I did not break my contract, for it was
    six weeks before the Auberge de Jehan Cottard even
    showed signs of opening. In the meantime I worked at the
    Hotel X, four days a week in the cafeterie, one day helping
    the waiter on the fourth floor, and one day replacing the
    woman who washed up for the dining-room. My day off,
    luckily, was Sunday, but sometimes another man was ill and
    I had to work that day as well. The hours were from seven in
    the morning till two in the afternoon, and from five in the
    evening till nine—eleven hours; but it was a fourteen-hour
    day when I washed up for the dining-room. By the ordinary
    standards of a Paris PLONGEUR, these are exceptionally
    short hours. The only hardship of life was the fearful heat
    and stuffiness of these labyrinthine cellars. Apart from this
    the hotel, which was large and well organized, was consid-
    ered a comfortable one.
    Our cafeterie was a murky cellar measuring twenty feet
    by seven by eight high, and so crowded with coffee-urns,
    breadcutters and the like that one could hardly move with-
    out banging against something. It was lighted by one dim
    electric bulb, and four or five gas-fires that sent out a fierce
    red breath. There was a thermometer there, and the tem-
    perature never fell below 110 degrees Fahrenheit—it neared
    130 at some times of the day. At one end were five service
    0
    Down and Out in Paris and London
    lifts, and at the other an ice cupboard where we stored
    milk and butter. When you went into the ice cupboard you
    dropped a hundred degrees of temperature at a single step;
    it used to remind me of the hymn about Greenland’s icy
    mountains and India’s coral strand. Two men worked in the
    cafeterie besides Boris and myself. One was