In striking contrast to our mere eating was my guests’ enjoyment of every morsel of the food which they had selected, not simply because it was food, but because it was a note fitting into the gastronomic harmony. The head waiter and all his minions hovered about them with due reverence, and woe to him who by pose or gesture disturbed the perfect accord.
A friend from Nebraska who was staying at our hotel had joined us at dinner. When the waiter handed him the bewildering bill of fare, he waved it aside saying: “Just bring me a big lobster stewed in milk, with a dish of pickles and a mince pie.”
The waiter turned pale, the Herr Director gasped, almost strangling on the salad he was eating, and the Frau Directorin looked at me despairingly. The waiter was the first to recover his composure, and cautiously suggested that the gentleman might like some Lobster à la Newburgh.
“Nix,” said the Nebraskan, “I want lobster à la Milkburgh, and don’t forget the pickles.”
The waiter retreated and after a long conference with his superior, informed the gentleman that he could have his lobster stewed in milk, but that it would cost him one dollar and fifty cents.
“Hustle it along,” was the curt reply, and in about fifteen minutes he was deep in his bowl of lobster stew, flanked on either side by pickles and mince pie, while the rest of us were eating our way leisurely and artistically through a menu which began with caviar and ended with Camambert and demitasse.
After dinner, American men, manners and ideals became the subject of a discussion into which my Western friend good-naturedly entered, although he was made a horrible example of the fact that we are ill-mannered. The Herr Director insisted that our nation is too young to have any except bad manners, and while no doubt we had improved in the years since he first made our acquaintance, the improvement had not yet permeated the masses.
That which I called the American Spirit was the spirit of the few cultured, academic persons I knew, but the majority of the people was as alien to it as was our Nebraska friend’s lobster and mince pie to our delicious and dietetically correct dinner.
“I don’t give a hang for your ‘dietetically correct dinner.’ I want what I want, when I want it!” the Nebraskan said, smiting the table with his fist, and evidently suppressing stronger language with an apologetic glance at the ladies of our party.
“That is exactly it; you want what you want, when you want it,” the Herr Director repeated, “whether or not it is on the bill of fare, or in the statute book, or among the laws of the Universe. In that I suppose you Americans all agree; that is your American Spirit.” He uttered the last phrase with special emphasis, and with no attempt to hide the sneer.