Page:Heart of the West (1907).djvu/207

 intending to do so, I says, out loud, to the imaginary waiter, ‘Cut it thick and have it rare, with the French fried, and six, soft-scrambled, on toast.’

“Mame turned her head quick as a wink. Her eyes were sparkling and she smiled sudden.

“‘Medium for me,’ she rattles out, ‘with the Juliennes, and three, straight up. Draw one, and brown the wheats, double order to come. Oh, Jeff, wouldn’t it be glorious! And then I’d like to have a half fry, and a little chicken curried with rice, and a cup custard with ice cream, and’

“‘Go easy,’ I interrupts; ‘where’s the chicken liver pie, and the kidney sauté on toast, and the roast lamb, and’

“‘Oh,’ cuts in Mame, all excited, ‘with mint sauce, and the turkey salad, and stuffed olives, and raspberry tarts, and’

“‘Keep it going,’ says I. ‘Hurry up with the fried squash, and the hot corn pone with sweet milk, and don’t forget the apple dumpling with hard sauce, and the cross-barred dew-berry pie’

“Yes, for ten minutes we kept up that kind of restaurant repartee. We ranges up and down and backward and forward over the main trunk lines and the branches of the victual subject, and Mame leads the game, for she is apprised in the ramifications of grub, and the dishes she nominates aggravates my yearnings. It seems that there is set up a feeling that Mame will line up friendly again with food. It