By the last course Grand would be utterly exhausted, and the exquisite dessert would invariably prove too much for his overtaxed senses. At the first taste of it, he would go into a final tantrum and then simply black out. He always had to be carried from the restaurant on a stretcher, leaving waiters and diners staring agape, while the maître d’ stood respectfully by the door with several of his staff.
“Boy, was that guy ever nuts! Huh?” a wide-eyed young waiter would exclaim as he stood with the maître d’, gazing after the departing figures. But the latter would appear not to have heard.
“The last of the grand gourmets,” he would sigh, and there was always a trace of wistful nostalgia in his face when he turned back from the door. “No, sir, they don’t make taste buds like that any more.”
Connivance with the maître d’s of these top restaurants was an expensive affair, and there was a shake-up in more than one veteran staff due to it. Those who lost their jobs though were usually in a position to open fairly smart restaurants of their own—assuming, of course, they didn’t care to buy the one from which they were fired.
XIII
“In literature, of course,” Ginger Horton was saying, “the best writing comes out of the heart, and not the head!”
“I’ll buy that!” agreed Guy Grand, coming forward on his big chair in ready interest, his voice going a bit taut with feeling as he continued:
“For my money the best ... the very best darn writing is done right out of the old guts, by God!” And he gave his budding paunch a short slap to strengthen his meaning.
“Good Heavens,” said Esther crouching forward into a sea of giggles.
“And no rewrite!” said Guy strongly, “... right out of the old guts onto the goddamn paper!”