Our next landlady had a gigantic mouth, but her nose was a magnificent failure. We stayed with her a week, and left because she seemed to be possessed of the idea that one sausage was enough for two men. For a month longer we ran the gauntlet of all the model boarding-houses. We were entrapped by all kinds of alluring promises, and perpetually swindled without any regard to decency; we had a taste of Yankee, French, Dutch, and, I have mentioned it before, (ye gods!), Irish; and we lived four days in an establishment presided over by a red-eyed darkey, with a wife the color of a new saddle.
At last one day in an agony of despair I exclaimed, "Where, O where can humbugged humanity find a decent place to feed?" Echo answered, "In the eating-houses." We resolved to try it, and the result is glorious. We have achieved a victory, sir, an heroic, unexpected victory.
And now farewell, all scrawny landladies, ye snuffy beldames, with your wooden smiles; farewell, ye viviparous bedsteads, ye emaciated feather beds, and ye attenuated bolsters; a long good-bye to scant blankets and mattresses stuffed with shavings; farewell to hirsute butter and to ancient bread; good-bye (I say it with a tear,) ye immortal, everlasting beef; farewell to sloppy coffee and to azure milk (Damphool says, not yet); farewell ye antediluvian pies, and you lilliputian puddings; farewell you two-inch napkins, and ye holy table-cloths; farewell ye empty grates and rusty coal-scuttles; farewell ye cracked mirrors which make a man look like a drunken Satyr; farewell ye respectable chairs with dislocated limbs; farewell ye fractured teacups, ye broken forks, and knives with handsaw edges; farewell, in fact, all ye lodging houses, where you can't have a latch-key, and where you can tell when they get a new hired girl by the color of the hairs in the biscuit.
(I noticed this last remarkable fact a long time since.)
Give us joy, for we have found a place where things are done up right, where we can choose our own viands, where the beef is positively tender, where there are no little red ants in the sugar, where the potatoes are not waxy, and where, if anything goes wrong, we can inflate the waiter.
In fact, we are suited; if anything runs short, "John gets particular fits" and "nuthin' shorter;" where we can eat when we please, and call for what we please; where charges are moderate, and it is permitted to grumble at the waiter for nothing.
And here, in this Elysian spot, have Bull Dogge and I taken our daily bread (beans and butter included) for the past month, "without fear and without reproach."
As our poetical friend, Thomas Plus, has remarked,
"Joy, joy, forever, our task is done, Our trials are past, and our Restaurant is some."
Damphool says my concluding quotation is not strictly correct, but what does he know about it?