m
elbowed by three others at my polished marble table; but if there were
more room I should never object to the company. It is the good, kind,
cleanly, comely American average, which is the best company in the
world, with a more than occasional fine head, and faces delicately
sculptured by thought and study. I address myself fearlessly to the old
and young of my own sex, without ever a snub such as I might get from
the self-respectful maids or matrons who resort to the shining halls,
severally or collectively, if I ventured upon the same freedom with
them. I must say that my commensals lunch or dine as wisely as I do for
the most part, but sometimes I have had to make my tacit criticisms; and
I am glad that I forbore one night with a friendly young man at my
elbow, who had just got his order of butter-cakes--"

"Butter-cakes?" we queried.

"That is what they call a rich, round, tumid product of the griddle,
which they serve very hot, and open to close again upon a large lump of
butter. For two of those cakes and his coffee my unknown friend paid
fifteen cents, and made a supper, after which I should not have needed
to break my fast the next morning. But he fearlessly consumed it, and
while he ate he confided that he was of a minor clerical employ in one
of the great hotels near by, and when I praised our shining hall and its
guests he laughed and said he came regularly, and he always saw people
there who were registered at his hotel: they found it good and they
found it cheap. I suppose you know that New York abounds in tables
d'hote of a cheapness unapproached in the European capitals?"

We said we had heard so; at the same time we tried to look as if we
always dined somewhere in society, but Heaven knows whether we
succeeded.

"The combination breakfast is a form of table d'hote; and at a very
attractive restaurant in a good place I have seen such a
breakfast--fruit, cereal, eggs, rolls, and coffee--offered for fifteen
cents. I have never tried it, not because I had not the courage, but
because I thought thirty cents cheap enough; those who do not I should
still hold worthy of esteem if they ate the fifteen-cent breakfast. I
have also seen placarded a 'business men's lunch' for fifteen cents,
which also I have not tried; I am not a business man. I make bold to
say, however, that I often go for my lunch or my dinner to a certain
Italian place on a good avenue, which I will not locate more definitely
lest you shoul