ay
have noticed, in a large restaurant when you order anything that is out
of the ordinary--which means anything that is ordinary--it takes time to
put the proposition through the proper channels. The waiter lays your
application before the board of governors, and after the board of
governors has disposed of things coming under the head of unfinished
business and good of the order it takes a vote, and if nobody blackballs
you the treasurer is instructed to draw a warrant and the secretary
engrosses appropriate resolutions, and your order goes to the cook.

But finally this man's food arrived. And he looked at it and sniffed at
it daintily--like a reluctant patient going under the ether--and he
tasted of it; and then he put his face down in his hands and burst into
low, poignant moans. For it wasn't the real thing at all. The stuffing
of the turkey defied chemical analysis; and, moreover, the turkey before
serving should have been dusted with talcum powder and fitted with
dress-shields, it being plainly a crowning work of the art
preservative--meaning by that the cold-storage packing and pickling
industry. And if you can believe what Doctor Wiley says--and if you
can't believe the man who has dedicated his life to warning you against
the things which you put in your mouth to steal away your membranes,
whom can you believe?--the cranberry sauce belonged in a paint store and
should have been labeled Easter-egg dye, and the green peas were green
with Paris green.

As for the plum pudding, it was one of those burglar-proof,
enamel-finished products that prove the British to be indeed a hardy
race. And, of course, they hadn't brought him his coffee along with his
dinner, the management having absolutely refused to permit of a thing so
revolutionary and unprecedented and one so calculated to upset the whole
organization. And at the last minute the racial instincts of the cook
had triumphed over his instructions, and he had impartially imbued
everything with his native brews, gravies, condiments, seasonings,
scents, preservatives, embalming fluids, liquid extracts and
perfumeries. So, after weeping unrestrainedly for a time, the man paid
the check, which was enormous, and tipped everybody freely and went away
in despair and, I think, committed suicide on an empty stomach. At any
rate, he came no more. The moral of this fable is, therefore, that it
can't be done.

But why can't it be done? I ask you that and pause for a reply