These people do not use this combination for a weapon or for a
disinfectant, or for anything else for which it is naturally
purposed; they actually go so far as to eat it. You pass a cabmen's
lunchroom and get a whiff of a freshly opened Toad in the Hole
--and you imagine it is the German invasion starting and wonder
why they are not removing the women and children to a place of
safety. All England smells like something boiling, just as all
France smells like something that needs boiling.
Seemingly the only Londoners who enjoy any extensive variety in
their provender are the slum-dwellers. Out Whitechapel-way the
establishment of a tripe dresser and draper is a sight wondrous
to behold, and will almost instantly eradicate the strongest
appetite; but it is not to be compared with an East End meatshop,
where there are skinned sheep faces on slabs, and various vital
organs of various animals disposed about in clumps and clusters.
I was reminded of one of those Fourteenth Street museums of
anatomy--tickets ten cents each; boys under fourteen not admitted.
The East End butcher is not only a thrifty but an inquiring soul.
Until I viewed his shop I had no idea that a sheep could be so
untidy inside; and as for a cow--he finds things in a cow she
didn't know she had.
Breakfast is the meal at which the Englishman rather excels; in
fact England is the only country in Europe where the natives have
the faintest conception of what a regular breakfast is, or should
be.
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