Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/210

 appetite, found a boa constrictor's, and was ashamed of his big, lumbering appetite.

"Well, they rendezvoused at old Martin's on Tenth Street and Fifth Avenue, then the most recherché meal joint in town. It happened, by the way, at the period when the deadly table d'hote imposition was just beginning to sprout.

"Jimmy had never faced that sort of jaw music and knew no more about 'entrees,'  'poisson,'  'legumes,' etc., than the average Irish waiter's wife. Up to then his dinner had consisted invariably of steak, murphies and pie—the embarrassment of courses described in more or less pigeon-French on the Martin menu, therefore, bewildered and frightened him. When he heard the new manager say over the anchovies, cold slaw and pickled sardines: 'Well, Jimmy, how would a thousand a week suit you?' Powers had only strength to ejaculate: 'The Lord preserve us!'

"The fried 'English' sole de-Long-Branch with drawn butter and capers on the side was so delicious, Jimmy didn't perceive the slight discrepancy in figures when the manager repeated the question in this fashion: 'How would you like to draw a cool nine hundred a week, Jimmy?'

"'It's done," said Jimmy, attacking his third tumbler of red ink. 'I can keep a hoss on that, can't I?'

"'And marry Lillian Russell—what a team you two would make,' seconded the manager. 206