We were both there punctually.
“Have you got your appetite with you?” asked Dove. “It's a bit early for feasting, but it'll give us time for a stroll after lunch.”
“Where do we eat?” I said. “Commutation again? It's all velvet to me, anyway, all my lunches are paid for for the next three months.”
“There's a little place on Beekman Street I used to know,” he said. “Let's try that.”
We found a corner table in an odd old eating house at the corner of Beekman and Gold streets, which I had never seen before.
“I'm a great believer in tit for tat, fair play, and all that sort of thing,” said Dulcet when the waiter approached. “You gave me an excellent lunch yesterday. I intend to give you the same lunch to-day, if you can stand eating it again. Waiter! Mutton chop, baked potato, baked beans, coffee, and cheese cake. For two.”
When the beans came, baked with cheese in a little brown dish, just as they were served the day before, I must confess that I was startled.
“Why, these beans are done exactly like those we had at the Commutation,” I said. “Are these people doing the cooking for the chop-house?”
“Perhaps you'll have to eat chop and beans for a hundred lunches,” Dulcet said. “Well, it's a hearty diet. After all, the sandwich boards simply said a hundred meals. They didn't guarantee that they would be different.”