“They do me that honour, sir; and I do my best to accommodate them.”
(What a polite publican, thought I, if he were not a mulatto!) “And what have you fit to eat?” demanded I.
“Fine canvass-back ducks, oysters, and venison. Canvass-back ducks are prime; just the season. Shall I show you into the other room?”
“No, I would rather take a duck here; but you must give me a clean table-cloth.”
“Certainly, sir. What sort of wine will you take? hock, champaign, claret, madeira, or sherry? I have got some first-rate Johannisberger and some of Lynch’s claret.”
“Have you champaign in pint bottles?”
“At your service, sir.—John! put a clean table-cloth at No. 3. Do you want the papers in the mean while?”
In less than fifteen minutes one of the best specimens of that inestimable bird, the canvass-back duck, for which the Americans might justly be envied by European princes, was placed before me, “with the usual trimmings,” consisting of jelly, butter, beets, and pickles, together with a small bottle of the Napoleon brand champaign. The whole was served in good order; and I could not but wonder that in a place of so mean and unfashionable an appearance a person should find such excellent accommodations. What would Mr. Stuart have said if his good fortune had led him to the Epicure House in Washington? I can assure him that in no other place in the United States could he have eaten canvass-back ducks more deserving of praise and comment.
Hardly had I commenced eating, before a noisy uproarious set of men entered the premises, singing and swaggering, and calling in a stentorian voice for cheese and crackers.[17]
“What a d—d shabby party that was!” exclaimed a young man, dressed in the latest New York fashion, with dirty gloves, and his shirt-collar turned down with perspiration; “one of your regular Boston ones.[18] I believe nothing was handed round but lemonade and spunge-cake, and of that there was scarcely enough for the ladies.”