The three books he wrote while still working in the delicatessen store are indelibly stamped with the pathos of his environment—"Thoughts in Vinegar," a bitter satire on bohemianism—"Three Little Pickles," an autobiography of the Barrymores as children and "The lonely Anchovy," a whimsical fantasy which if we are to believe Town Topics made Sir James Barrie quite furious.
The story of the sudden recognition of Jake D'Annunzio Spout's genius by the more advanced literary coterie of New York City, etc., is widely known but too charming to leave unmentioned. He was, so we are told, seated on an upturned wooden box behind a pile of cheeses, sunk in a reverie, when suddenly the door opened and three men came into the store.
"We wish to see Jake D'Annunzio Spout," said the foremost with a rich Harvard accent.
Jake rose shyly, knocking a Camembert to the ground in his embarrassment. "I am he," he said blushing.
A grey-haired man sniffed and waved his hand comprehensively. "You must leave these sordid surroundings," he said in a beautifully modulated voice in which a bad cold and a Yale intonation struggled for precedence, "and come with us."
"Where to?" cried Jake clutching a salami sausage with boyish excitement.
All three men doffed their hats.
"To the Coffee House," they said reverently.
"At this point," says Earl Hank in his exquisite study, 'Spout Through and Through,' tears of ecstasy gushed down the boy's cheeks. 'At last,' he cried in a choked voice and swooned.
The three men gathered him up tenderly and carried him out towards the Elevated—"