Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/238

224 Your tin openers rasp into the tin with the result that a fine sawdust of metal must drop into the contents and so enter the human system. The result is perhaps negligible in a large majority of cases, but that it is not universally so is proved by the prevalence of appendicitis. Not orange or grape pips, as was so long believed, but the deadly fine rain of metal shavings must be held responsible for this scourge. I need hardly say that at the United States Grill no tinned food will be used."

This latest discovery of the Colonel's is important if true. Be that as it may, his restaurant will fill a long-felt want, and will doubtless prove to be an important factor in the social gayeties of our smart set. Due notice of its opening will be given in the news and doubtless in the advertising columns of this journal.

Again I was brought to marvel at a peculiarity of the American press, a certain childish eagerness for marvels and grotesque wonders. I had given but passing thought to my remarks about appendicitis and its relation to the American tinned-food habit, nor, on reading the chap's screed, did they impress me as being fraught with vital interest to thinking people; in truth, I was more concerned with the comparison of myself to a restaurateur of the crude new city of New York, which might belittle rather than distinguish me, I suspected. But what was my astonishment to perceive in the course of a few days that I had created rather a sensation, with attending newspaper publicity which, although bizarre enough, I am bound to say contributed not a little to the consideration in which I afterward came to be held by the more serious-minded persons of Red Gap.

Busied with the multitude of details attending my installation, I was called upon by another press chap, representing a Spokane sheet, who wished me to elaborate my views concerning the most probable cause of