Page:The Mystery of Central Park.djvu/135

Rh the fine dishes. Oh, I think people who can take their dinners out all the time must be very, very happy."

"You would not think so if you were a poor, forlorn man," he said, smiling at her enthusiasm, "and had to dine out three hundred and sixty-five times a year, not counting breakfast and luncheon. I've started out evenings and I've stopped on Broadway and wondered where on earth I should eat. Delmonico's, St. James, Hoffman, all are old stories, clear down the list. Here I had luncheon, there probably I had breakfast, the other place I dined last night or the night before, and at last I turn down some cross street, and go into a cheap place where a fellow can't get a mouthful that it doesn't gag him, so I'll have an appetite to-morrow. I hate the sight of a bill of fare and I get so that I'll fool around for half an hour until some man near me orders, and then I order