Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/73

Rh safer in every way than the old-fashioned gas heaters.

A source of danger, but a necessary one, comes from the restaurant. It is only in the last ten years that restaurants in museums have been considered feasible. They were not necessary in the old days when the museums were much smaller than they are now, but since it has been the fashion for us to have buildings with the floor area of the Louvre and the British Museum and the Metropolitan, it has become necessary to provide the weary traveller with some means of sustaining life until he can accomplish his object. The size of the restaurants provided differs in different places, although the most complete and most delightful in many respects is the celebrated one at the South Kensington Museum in London. Here it is possible for people of moderate means to get a good and inexpensive luncheon in the large and airy room on the main floor. The epicure may go to the grill, at a slightly increased cost, select his own chop or steak, and see it cooked before his eyes, over a most dangerous and wholly beautiful fire under an enormous chimney. The luxurious may enter a third room fitted with all the appointments of a first-class hotel, where at a price commensurate with the glory about him he may eat an excellent meal.