nted to go into them, but Mr. Brett wouldn't take me. To
get to the restaurant you go up a long flight of marble stairs, with
two grinning Chinese devil-heads, like watch dogs, on the wall at the
top.

Nothing could be more modern and Western than the Chicago surging and
roaring outside. But as you pass the guardian devils and cross the
threshold of that restaurant you turn your back on the present and find
yourself in the Far East. I liked it better than Mrs. Ess Kay's
gorgeous Aladdin's Cave, for there's nothing imitation or stagey about
this place. There's real lacquer, and real silver and gold on the
strange partitions; real Chinese mural paintings; real Chinese lamps
swinging from the ceilings; real ebony stools to sit on at the inlaid
octagon tables, and real ebony chopsticks to eat with if you choose,
instead of commonplace knives and forks.

Of course we did choose; I would be ashamed to bow to myself in the
looking glass if we hadn't; and we pretended that we were making an
actual tour in China as we ate strange yet delicious food such as my
wildest imagination could not have conjured. I was a great princess,
and Mr. Brett was my Chief Grand Marshal. He wanted to be my courier,
but I wouldn't have him for anything so ignominious. I reminded him
that I had counselled ambition, and I gave him for a decoration a
little steel and paste button which just then came off my grey bolero
where it didn't show much. He immediately pinned it under the lapel of
his coat, and looked suddenly quite solemn as he said he would keep it
always.

We had Bird's Nest Bud-ball Yet-bean War; and Shark's Fin, Loung-fong
Chea; and Duck, Gold-silver Tone Arp; eggs with Shrimp Yook; cake
called Rose Sue; and Ting Moy, which was a Canton preserve; and various
other things that I picked out from the names Mr. Brett read me from
the funny yellow menu card. Afterwards we had Head-loo-hom tea in
beautiful little cups without handles, much prettier than those which
Mother keeps in a cabinet in the room that smells of camphor from
Mohunsleigh's polar bear. I was horrified when the bill came, to see
that it was about half a yard long, and that Mr. Brett had to pay with
a number of expensive-looking greenback things, but he laughed when he
saw my frightened face, and said the dinner didn't really cost all
that, he only wanted change. I begged him to let me go halves with
everything, as I'd invited myself, in a way, but he told me I didn't
under