James Walsingham Price understand that there
was no dinner card. This being clear at last, the newcomer said: "Oh,
_very_ well! Then just give my order to the head-waiter, will
you--there's a good chap--a cup of consomme, a bit of fish, a bird of
some sort, broiled, I fancy,--er--potatoes _au gratin_, a green salad of
some kind,--serve that with the bird,--a piece of Camembert, if it's in
good condition, any _entremet_ you have and a _demi-tasse_. I'll mix the
salad dressing myself, tell him,--oh, yes--and a pint of Chambertin if
you've something you can recommend."
Billy Durgin, scrutinizing the newcomer in a professional way, told me
afterwards that Jake Kilburn "batted his eyes" during this strange
speech and replied to it, "like a man coming to"--"supper in twenty
minutes," after which he pounded a bell furiously and then himself
showed his new and puzzling guest to a room--but not a room "with a
bath," be it understood, for a most excellent reason.
Billy Durgin was excited half an hour later by noting the behavior of
the first strange gentleman from the East as his eyes fell upon this
second. He threw both hands into the air, where they engaged in rapid
horizontal shakings from his pliant wrists, and in hushed gutturals
exclaimed, "My God, my God!" in his own fashion of speech, which was
reproduced admirably for me by my informant.
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