of
Madison Square, and she was in a measure in Fawcett's mind when he
wrote, in "A Gentleman of Leisure," that vigorous description
contrasting socially the stretch of the Avenue below Fourteenth Street
with the later development a dozen blocks to the north. In another
Fawcett novel, "Olivia Delaplaine," we find the home of the heroine's
husband in Tenth Street, just off the Avenue; and, reverting to "A
Gentleman of Leisure," Clinton Wainwright, the gentleman in question,
lived, like a "visiting Englishman," at the Brevoort.

There have been many Delmonicos. But for the purposes of fiction there
has never been one just like the establishment that occupied a corner at
the junction of the Avenue and Fourteenth Street. It was a more limited
town in those days. The novelist wishing to depict his hero doing the
right thing in the right way by his heroine did not have the variety of
choice he has now. Two squares away, the Academy of Music was,
theatrically and operatically, the social centre, so to carry on the
narrative with a proper regard for the conventions, the preceding dinner
or the following supper was necessarily at the old Delmonico's. They
were good trenchermen and trencherwomen, those heroes and heroines of
yesterday! Many oyster-beds were depleted, and bins of rare vintage
emptied to satisfy the healthy appetites of the inked pages. Somehow the
mouth waters with the memory. When Delmonico's moved on to Twenty-sixth
Street, and from its terraced tables its patrons could look up at
graceful Diana, there were many famous dinners of fiction, such as the
one, for example, consumed by the otherwise faultless Walters, for a
brief period in the service of Mr. Van Bibber--the menu selected:
"Little Neck clams first, with chablis, and pea-soup, and caviare on
toast, before the oyster crabs, with Johannisberger Cabinet; then an
_entree_ of calves' brains and rice; then no roast, but a bird, cold
asparagus with French dressing, Camembert cheese, and Turkish coffee,"
may be accepted as indicating the gastronomical taste of the author in
the days when youth meant good digestion--but with the departure from
the old Fourteenth Street corner something of the flavour of the name
passed forever.

If New York has never had another restaurant that meant to the novelist
just what the traditional Delmonico's meant, there has also never been
another hotel like the old Fifth Avenue. In actual life the so-called
"Ladies' Parlour" on th