[A] Another hotel man has just taken the property. His first step has been to change its name and, if possible, its reputation. E. H.
Beer and rarebits, indeed. Sam Blythe tells of the little group of four who went into a hotel grillroom not far from Forty-second street and Broadway, who mildly asked for beer and rabbits.
"We have fine partridges," said the head-waiter, insinuatingly.
"We asked for beer and rabbits," insisted the host of the little group. He really did not know his New York.
"We have fine partridges," reiterated the head-waiter, then yawned slightly behind his hand. That yawn settled it. The head of the party was bellicose. He lost his temper completely. In a few minutes an ambulance and a patrol wagon came racing up Broadway. But the hotel had won. It always does.
*****
One thing more—the cabaret. We think that if you are really fond of Katherine, and Katherine's reputation, you will avoid the restaurants that make a specialty of the so-called cabarets. Really good restaurants manage to get along without them. And the very best that can be said of them is that they are invariably indifferently poor—a mélange contributed by broken-down actors or actresses, or boys or girls stolen from the possibilities of a really decent way of earning a living. As for the worst, it is enough to say that the familiarity that begins by breeding contempt follows in the wake of the cabaret. It may be very jolly for you, of a lonely summer evening in New York and forgetting all the real pleasures of a lonely summer night in the big town—wonderful orchestral concerts in Central Park, dining on open-air terraces and cool quiet roofs, motoring off to wonderful shore dinners in queer old taverns—to hunt out these great gay places in the heart of the town. Easy camaraderie is part and parcel of them. But you will not want such comrades to meet any of the Katherines of your family. And therein lies a more than subtle distinction.
VII
It has all quite dazed you. You turn toward Katherine as you ride home with her in the taxicab—space forbids a description of the horrors and the indignities of the taxicab trust.
"Is it like this—every night?" you feebly ask.