“I didn’t know.” Billy resignedly let himself to the floor, and appropriated the screwdriver. “I thought Wedgewood was dove color, 3 and consisted chiefly of ladies in deshabille, doing the tango on a parlor ornament. I smashed one in my youth, so I know. There, it’s open now. I may as well unpack what’s here. These seem to be demi-tasses.
‘You may tempt your upper classes,
With your villainous demi-tasses.
But Heaven will protect the working girl,’”
he finished lugubriously, in a wailing baritone, taking an imaginary encore by bowing a head picturesquely adorned with a crop of excelsior curls, accumulated during his activities in and about the barrel.
“The trouble with the average tea-room, or Arts and Crafts table d’hôte,” Nancy said, sinking into the depths of a broken armchair in the corner of the dim, overcrowded interior, “is that when the pinch comes, quantity is sacrificed to quality. Smaller portions of food, and chipped chinaware. People who can’t keep a place up, let it run down genteelly. They won’t compromise on quality. I should never be like that. I should go to the ten-cent stores and replenish my whole establishment, if I couldn’t make it pay with imported ware and Colonial 4 silver. I’d never go to the other extreme. I’d never be so perceptibly second-rate, but in the matter of furnishings as well as food values, I’d find my perfect balance between quality and quantity, and keep it.”
“I believe you would. You are a thorough child, when you set about a thing. I’ll bet you know the restaurant business from A to Z.”
“I do. You know, I studied the organization of every well-run restaurant in New York, when I was doing field work from Teachers’ College. I’ve read every book on the subject of Diet and Nutrition and Domestic Economy that I could get my hands on. I’m just ready now for the practical application of all my theories.”
“Nancy Calory Martin is your real name. I don’t blame you for hating to give up this tea-room idea. You’ve dug so deep into the possibilities of it, that you want to go through. I get that.”
Nancy’s eyes widened in satiric admiration.