urants to which the rich or reckless resort, but those modester
places which consult the means of the careful middle class to which I
belong. As you know, I live ostensibly at the Hotel Universe. I have a
room there, and that is my address----"

"We know," we derisively murmured. "So few of our visitors can afford
it."

"I can't afford it myself," our friend said. "But I save a little by
breakfasting there, and lunching and dining elsewhere. Or, I did till
the eggs got so bad that I had to go out for my breakfast, too. Now I
get perfect eggs, of the day before, for half the price that the
extortionate hens laying for the Universe exact for their last week's
product. At a very good Broadway hotel, which simple strangers from
Europe think first class, I get a 'combination' breakfast of fresh eggs,
fresh butter, and fresh rolls, with a pot of blameless Souchong or
Ceylon tea, for thirty cents; if I plunge to the extent of a baked
apple, I pay thirty-five. Do you remember what you last paid in Paris or
Rome for coffee, rolls, and butter?"

"A franc fifty," we remembered.

"And in London for the same with eggs you paid one and six, didn't you?"

"Very likely," we assented.

"Well, then, you begin to see. There are several good restaurants quite
near that good hotel where I get the same combination breakfast for the
same price; and if I go to one of those shining halls which you find in
a score of places, up and down Broadway and the side streets, I get it
for twenty-five cents. But though those shining halls glare at you with
roofs and walls of stainless tile and glass, and tables of polished
marble, their bill of fare is so inflexibly adjusted to the general
demand that I cannot get Souchong or Ceylon tea for any money; I can
only get Oolong; otherwise I must take a cup of their excellent coffee.
If I wander from my wonted breakfast, I can get almost anything in the
old American range of dishes for five or ten cents a portion, and the
quality and quantity are both all I can ask. As I have learned upon
inquiry, the great basal virtues of these places are good eggs and good
butter: I like to cut from the thick slice of butter under the perfect
cube of ice, better than to have my butter pawed into balls or cut into
shavings, as they serve your butter in Europe. But I prefer having a
small table to myself, with my hat and overcoat vis-a-vis on the chair
opposite, as I have it at that good hotel. In those shining halls I a