Of All Things

by Robert Benchley

To answer these questions I started out on a tour of the representative eating-places of some of our best known strata of society, and, whatever my conclusions are, you may be sure that they are thoroughly inexpert.

First, I tried out what is known as the Bay State Lunch, so called because on Thursdays they have a fishcake special. It is one of the hundreds of "self-serving" lunchrooms, where you approach the marble counter and give your order in a low tone to a man in a barber's coat, and then repeat it at intervals of one minute, each time louder and each time to a different man, until you are forced to point to a tub of salmon salad and say, "Some of that," for which your ticket is punched and you are allowed to take your portion and nurse it on the over-developed arm of a chair.

Here the roast beef shot through the Punch and Judy arrangement in the wall, a piece of meat about as large around as a man's-size mitten, steeping in its own gravy and of a pale reddish hue. The price was twenty cents, which included a dab of mashed potato dished out in an ice-cream scoop, a generous allowance of tender peas, two hot tea-biscuits and butter to match.

Considering the basic ingredient, it was a perfectly satisfactory meal, and I felt that twenty cents was little enough to pay for it, especially since it was going in on my expense account.

For the next experiment I went to a restaurant where business men are wont to gather for luncheon, men who pride themselves on their acumen and adherence to the principles of efficiency. The place has a French name and its menus are printed on a card the size of a life insurance company's complimentary calendar, always an ominous sign. The roast beef here was served cold, with a plate of escarole salad (when I was a boy I used to have to dig escarole out of the front lawn with a trowel so that the grass could have a chance) for seventy-five cents.

The meat bulked a little larger than at the Bay State Lunch, but when the fat had been cut away and trimmed off the salvage was about the size of a boy's mitten. As for the taste, the only difference that I could detect was that one had been hot and the other cold.

And, incidentally, the waiter had some bosom friends in the next room who fascinated him so that it was all I could do to make him see that if he didn't come around to me once in a while, just as a matter of form, there would be no way for me to tip him. Beef and salad, plus tip, ninety cents.

That evening I ambled up the Bowery until I came to the Busy Home Restaurant. On a black-board in front was written, "Roast Beef, Mashed Potatoes and Coffee, 10 Cents." My old hunger again seized me. I said to myself: "Look here! Be a man! This thing is getting the best of you." But before I knew it I was inside and seated at an oilcloth-covered table, saying, in a hoarse voice, "Roast beef!"

The waiter was dressed in an informal costume, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up and a mulatto apron about his waist, but he smiled genially when he took my order and was back with it in two minutes. The article itself was of the regulation size, cut somewhat thinner, perhaps, and bordering on the gray in hue, but undoubtedly roast beef. It, too, had an affinity for its own gravy and hid itself modestly under an avalanche of mashed potatoes. A cup of coffee was also included in the ten cents' initial expense, but I somehow wasn't coffee-thirsty that night, and so didn't sample it. But I did help myself to the plate piled high with fresh bread which was left in front of me. All in all, it was what I should call a representative roast beef dinner. And I got more than ten cents' worth of calories, I know.