I'm the busboy," said Mr. Ho, who is 65 and has been running No. 1 East for 18 years.
I'm a professional, a teacher, a writer, but to their eyes I'm still the busboy," said Mr. Quinonez, whose living expenses are fast gobbling up his modest advance -- he's on sabbatical from teaching to promote this book and write his next.
One busboy said in a declaration that he took up smoking so that he would have an excuse for going outside for a break.
When she heard about the busboy, she said, "I thought it was amazing that these people didn't have fraud warnings on their credit reports".
"He had heard that I'd written these one-acts and wanted to see them, and I think within a week we were in production," the former busboy, Sam Shepard, said in a recent telephone interview.
Using a few Web-enabled cellphones and a public library computer, the busboy is said to have guessed the passwords of his favorite tycoons, input personal information that conveniently appeared in Forbes magazine, swiped Social Security numbers and accessed brokerage accounts -- all between shifts sorting silverware.
"To President Clinton, he wasn't just a Honduran busboy," Levine said.
Mr. Catsimatidis also enjoys that the condominium, now owned by a European family, was once home to Jan Mitchell, an owner of the Longchamps restaurant chain, where Mr. Catsimatidis's father was a busboy, his spokesman said.
Over the last few years, popular restaurants have been subjects of an increasing number of labor lawsuits and protests from waiters, bartenders, deliverymen and busboys who say they have been cheated on wages and tips.
"I'm sure that nearly everybody in that restaurant knew him by name because he schmoozed with all of them, from the busboys on up," said Mr. Saber's oldest brother, Bruce.
"The busboy job was better," Carlos said.
