good dinner again. It's
been more than a year since I've seen a salad, or heard of after-dinner
coffee."

"Come on then," cried Wallace.

Together they sauntered through the lengthening shadows to a certain
small restaurant near Woodward Avenue, then much in vogue among
Detroit's epicures. It contained only a half dozen tables, but was
spotlessly clean, and its cuisine was unrivalled. A large fireplace near
the center of the room robbed it of half its restaurant air; and a thick
carpet on the floor took the rest. The walls were decorated in dark
colors after the German style. Several easy chairs grouped before the
fireplace, and a light wicker table heaped with magazines and papers
invited the guests to lounge while their orders were being prepared.

Thorpe was not in the least Sybaritic in his tastes, but he could
not stifle a sigh of satisfaction at sinking so naturally into the
unobtrusive little comforts which the ornamental life offers to its
votaries. They rose up around him and pillowed him, and were grateful to
the tired fibers of his being. His remoter past had enjoyed these things
as a matter of course. They had framed the background to his daily
habit. Now that the background had again slid into place on noiseless
grooves, Thorpe for the first time became conscious that his strenuous
life had indeed been in the open air, and that the winds of earnest
endeavor, while bracing, had chilled. Wallace Carpenter, with the poet's
insight and sympathy, saw and understood this feeling.

"I want you to order this dinner," said he, handing over to Thorpe the
card which an impossibly correct waiter presented him. "And I want it a
good one. I want you to begin at the beginning and skip nothing. Pretend
you are ordering just the dinner you would like to offer your sister,"
he suggested on a sudden inspiration. "I assure you I'll try to be just
as critical and exigent as she would be."

Thorpe took up the card dreamily.

"There are no oysters and clams now," said he, "so we'll pass right on
to the soup. It seems to me a desecration to pretend to replace them.
We'll have a bisque," he told the waiter, "rich and creamy. Then planked
whitefish, and have them just a light crisp, brown. You can bring some
celery, too, if you have it fresh and good. And for entree tell your
cook to make some macaroni au gratin, but the inside must be soft and
very creamy, and the outside very crisp. I know it's a queer dish for a
formal di