Breakfast Seventh.—Graham came in, looking bilious. He hesitated before ordering, but finally decided that he would take his quail chopped up into stew. There was some debate over this, and the committee finally went into the restaurant kitchen, to see that nothing got away. The stew seemed to please Graham and he made numerous jests at the expense of the men, "who," he said, "had no stomachs."
Breakfast Eighth.—Graham ordered quail stew again, but did not get along so well as he had on the previous morning. He declared the bird to be stale and said that it smelled "quailly." As a matter of fact, it was a plump young bird, shot only the day before.
Breakfast Ninth.—To the astonishment of everybody, Graham, who looked more bilious than ever, ordered quail hash. The committee was indignant, but there was no recourse, and so they were compelled to visit the kitchen again and watch the career of the quail from plucking to plate. Graham became furious. He said it was a shame to doubt the honesty of the establishment. He ate the quail.
It is unnecessary to continue in detail the story of the breakfasts in the great restaurant. Each day Graham became more petulant and unreasonable. All ways of cooking quail were at last exhausted, and there was a compelled return to some of those already employed. Graham by the fifteenth day had become haggard and the very odor of the delicate bird, as it came in, brought to him a feeling of utmost nausea. He was brusque with the faithful waiter, and took no interest in the conversation of his friends. He was plucky, though, and managed, by sheer force of will, to consume the distasteful ration. Meanwhile, the wager had become the comment of the town, especially among the wealthy youth, and thousands of dollars were staked upon the issue. The restaurant was thronged each morning, and the proprietor wished he had some such attraction to such a class throughout all the rotund year. This notoriety but made the case of poor Graham worse; it made him more anxious to succeed, but it unnerved him.
On the twentieth day the odds, which had at first been in favor of Graham, dropped to no odds at all, and on the twenty-second they were against him. He came in with a pallid look upon his face and sat down before his dainty fare. He took up his knife and fork; then suddenly laid them down and left the place. Within ten minutes he returned with a set face and resolutely performed his task. Where he had been was not known at the time, but it was rumored, later, in the Southern Hotel (which was in the same block) that there had been sold a half-pint bottle of champagne that morning to a gentleman in a hurry.
So, worse and worse became the man's condition, greater and greater his abhorrence of what is counted a delicate bit of eating. On the twenty-sixth morning he came in with a more closely hovering look of apprehension than had yet been noticed. He sat down before the bird, picked at it for a moment, rose from the table walked about for a while; then came back, again and again, and considered what was before him. He gasped, and, as he arose to his feet and started from the room, exclaimed huskily: "It's no use, boys. I was mistaken. I can't do it. I give up!"
There was pity for him, especially among the minors, for he had done his best. Many cheques were drawn that morning.
Driscoll always breakfasted at this restaurant and had, naturally, become interested in this droll struggle between man and quail. For a day or two after his own loss he had been dazed and discouraged haunting the lobbies of the Planter's, the Southern or the Lindell, and pitying himself amazingly. All at once he braced up, to an extent, through the influence of plucky little Jessie Cameron. "We must begin again—that's all," said she, resolutely and cheerily. "Surely, you love me as much as Jacob, who served twice seven years, for Rachel, and I admire you more than I do Jacob—though I never liked his device concerning Esau. Begin again, dear, and all will come right."
And Driscoll did begin again with a vigor, though henceforth he referred to Mr. Cameron as Laban to the indignation of the fair and filial Jessie.
The lover settled down to earnest work, did well and was becoming contented and hopeful. This condition of mind enabled him to speculate in his hours of ease upon something outside of his personal affairs. The quail-eating contest had interested him, because he was an educated man, and something of a student of the body. Why had Graham failed in the eating of thirty quail in thirty days? Men eat thirty breakfasts in thirty days and do not know they have done it. Hunters and miners eat bacon alone—that is, as far as their meat goes—for months at a time and think nothing of it. Why had Graham failed?