"You ought to look at it," he insisted. "It's a very pretty station."
So we got out and looked at it, and were glad we did, for the driver was quite right. It was an unusually pretty station—a station superior to the other in all respects but one: it contained no Miss Daisy Buck.
After some further driving, we returned to the station where she was.
"I suppose we had better go to the Sanitarium for lunch?" I asked her.
"Not on your life," she replied. "If you go to the 'San,' you won't feel like you'd had anything to eat—that is, not if you're good feeders."
"Where else is there to go?" I asked.
"The Tavern," she advised. "You'll get a first-class dinner there. You might have larger hotels in New York, but you haven't got any that's more homelike. At least, that's what I hear. I never was in New York myself, but I get the dope from the traveling men."
However, not for epicurean reasons, but because of curiosity, we wished to try a meal at the Sanitarium. Thither we drove in the hack, passing on our way the office of the "Good Health Publishing Company" and a small building bearing the sign, "The Coffee Parlor"—which may signify a Battle Creek substitute for a saloon. I do not know how coffee drinkers are regarded in that town, but I do know that, while there, I got neither tea nor coffee—unless "Postum" be coffee and "Kaffir Tea" be tea.
It was at the Sanitarium that I drank Kaffir Tea. I had it with my lunch. It looks like tea, and would probably taste like it, too, if they didn't let the Kaffirs steep so long. But they should use only fresh, young, tender Kaffirs; the old ones get too strong; they have too much bouquet. The one they used in my tea may have been slightly spoiled. I tasted him all afternoon.