I said: "I beg your pardon, too. I don't understand. Tell me more."
He said: "Would you marry your aunt? No. Neither may a Jewish restaurant serve milk, or its derivatives, such as, so to speak, butter, cheese, and so forth, on the same table with flesh. You ask for meat and bread and butter. You must have bread with your meat. If you have coffee, sir, you will have it Black."
I said: "It is my fault. No offence intended. I didn't know. Once again, I have made an ass of myself. Had I better not go?"
He said, swiftly: "No, don't go, sir. Oh, don't go. Listen: have the smoked beef, with a roll. Follow with prunes or kugel. And if you want a drink with your meal, instead of afterwards, have tea-and-lemon in place of black coffee."
And so, out of that brutal mistake, I made yet another London friend, of whom I have, roughly, about two thousand five hundred scattered over the four-mile radius.