A MID-DAY MEAL-LENNIUM.
Reading edition
(With Salutation to the "Society for the Promotion of Enjoyment during Luncheon Hours, specially in the City.")
Lunching as it Is.
No, I certainly did not order Irish Stew; but as you have now brought it, and I have been waiting a quarter of an hour for a cut from the joint, I prefer to take it.
This room is very stuffy and crowded. Is that purple-faced gentleman in the corner suffering from an apoplectic stroke?
No; but he has been waiting half an hour for the Irish Stew which I have just annexed. He seems angry about it.
Waiter, would you try not to kick my chair and knock the back of my head every time you pass with a dish?
Yes, I know it's a narrow gangway, and that everybody in this dark and confined crib which you call a City Restaurant is cramped for room; still, I do object to collisions between my best hat and somebody else's victuals.
Would you mind talking to me in the Deaf and Dumb Alphabet? In this maddening clatter it is impossible to hear a word you say.
That young man three from me is evidently training as the Champion Express Eater of the World. He has got through joint, potatoes, rhubarb tart, and Cheddar cheese in seven minutes, and is now putting on his hat to go.
As it Ought to be.
Is this spacious airy hall, with a fountain playing in the middle of shrubs, and abundant light coming in through painted windows, really the "Apple-pie Restaurant" in its new form?
And this neat-handed Phyllis, who respectfully awaits my orders as soon as I have taken my very comfortable seat, can she be the substitute for the over-worked and distracted City waiter of the past?
I see that especial care is taken to prevent the room being filled with more lunchers than it can hold with comfort to each individual customer, by an apparatus which automatically closes the door when every seat is full.
What! No shooting down of one's plate before one as if fired from a catapult, and no tedious waiting for dishes never ordered! This is a Luncher's Paradise.
It seems possible that I may now escape the dyspepsia which, in the old days, was the unfailing legacy of lunch.
"Toujours 'Gay.'"—On an exit of Mrs. Langtry, as Esther Sandraz, at the St. James's Theatre:—
"Adieu! she cried, and wav'd her Lily hand."
[How is it that Messrs. Transparent Soap & Co. have never hit on this? Presented gratis.]
Forthcoming New Work to be expected in about six weeks' time, Newton's Principia, revised and corrected by Mr. Justice Cave.