After this had happened to me several times I told the waiter with
gentle irony that he might as well screw the lid back on the casket
and proceed with the obsequies. I told him I was not one of those
morbid people who love to look on the faces of the strange dead.
The funeral could not get under way too soon to suit me. It seemed
to me that this funeral was already several days overdue. That
was what I told him.
In my travels the best place I ever found to get Italian dishes
was a basement restaurant under an old brownstone house on
Forty-seventh Street, in New York. There you might find the typical
dishes of Italy--I defy you to find them in Italy without a
search-warrant. However, while in Italy the tourist may derive
much entertainment and instruction from a careful study of table
manners.
In our own land we produce some reasonably boisterous trenchermen,
and some tolerably careless ones too. Several among us have yet
to learn how to eat corn on the ear and at the same time avoid
corn in the ear. A dish of asparagus has been known to develop
fine acoustic properties, and in certain quarters there is a crying
need for a sound-proof soup; but even so, and admitting these
things as facts, we are but mere beginners in this line when
compared with our European brethren.
In the caskets of memory I shall ever cherish the picture of a
particularly hairy gentleman, apparently of Russian extraction,
who patronized our hotel in Venice one evening.
Pages:
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129