The Wood Fire in No. 3 Part 4

"Then De Ruyter walks into Van Hoesen's, the largest cafe we have in my town; stands until the head waiter recognizes him and comes over to his side; orders with his old magnificent manner the wines, the soup, the entrees, even the anchovies after the sweets--that is a custom of ours--the whole costing ten guilders, with one guilder to the waiter.

When it was served he sat himself down, opened his napkin, tipped the newspaper where he could glance at it, and ate very slowly like a man of leisure.

"When the coffee was pa.s.sed the head waiter brought to him an a.s.sortment of cigars on a tray, some one guilder each, some five cents. De Ruyter pushed them away with a contemptuous wave of the hand, saying, 'There is nothing you have to my taste; I will smoke my own.'

"The great moment had now arrived. He paid his bill, ordered a fresh candle, waited until the head waiter, whose guilder had made him all the more obsequious, had lighted it and stood waiting where he could see, and then slipped his hand into his inside pocket for the cigar. It was not there! Then he remembered that he had not taken it from the bed.

"He ran all the way home. There lay the cigar on the blanket. The next instant it was on the floor and under his heel.

"'Lie there, d.a.m.n you!' he said, crus.h.i.+ng it to pieces. 'You have spoiled my dinner!'

"You see, gentlemen, it was not the hunger of the empty stomach; it was a starved imagination that was ravenous like a wolf. Ah, cannot you feel for the poor fellow? All the week hungry, one great idea of the dignity of rank in his mind, and then to have his triumph spoiled, and under the eyes of the head waiter, too! And such beasts of waiters they are at home, with their eyes seeing everything and their tongues never still!

My father, when he would tell the story, would tap his chair and say, 'Ah, poor devil! such a pity--such a pity he forgot it! It would have tasted so good to him!' That was a word of my father's--'He forgot it--he forgot it,' he would say, shaking his finger at us."

"All to the credit of your father, Van Brunt," burst out Marny; "but if you want my candid opinion of your blue-blooded, busted baron, I think he was a selfish brute, without the first glimmer of what a gentleman should have done under such circ.u.mstances, and I leave it to everybody here to decide whether I'm right or wrong. What he ought to have done was to hunt around for some of his friends, order a dinner for two, hand his friend the cigar and take a cheap one from the waiter for himself.

What you call 'fine eating' has nothing to do with either the stomach or with the imagination. Fine eating is an excuse for good fellows.h.i.+p; when you don't have that, it is a 'stalled ox' and the rest of it. What you want is to open with a laugh and eat straight through to that same kind of music. All the good dinners in the world were jolly dinners; all the poor ones were funeral gatherings, no matter how good the cooking. I'll give you an idea of what a good dinner ought to be. None of your selfish, solitary-confinement sort of a meal like this self-centred Dutchman's, but a rip-roaring, waistcoat-swelling, breath-catching, hilarious feast, which began with a hurrah, continued with every man singing psalms of thanksgiving over the dishes and the company, and ended with a tempest of good cheer and everybody loving everybody else twice as much for having come together."

"Clam-chowder club, of course," growled Boggs, "with a bra.s.s band and a cord of firewood, and three-legged stools to sit on."

Marny glared at the Chronic Interrupter, made a movement with his hand as if to compel his silence, and continued:

"We had eaten nothing since breakfast but five raw clams apiece, and----"

"Where was all this, Marny, anyhow?" asked Boggs.

"Down at Uncle Jesse Conklin's, on Cap Tree Island," retorted Marny impatiently.

"All right--sounded as if it might be at a summer boarding-house. Go ahead!"

"No, down on Great South Bay. The Stone Mugs had an outing and I went along. These clams coming on an empty stomach and being right out of the salt water and fresh and cold----"

"Mixed in your statements, old man: can't be salt and fresh at the same time. But go on! So far we've only got five clams to be hilarious on----"

Marny reached over and grabbed Boggs by the collar.

"Will you shut up, or shall I throw you over the banisters?"

"I'll shut up--like your clam; won't say another word, so help me!" and Boggs held up one hand as if to be sworn.

"These clams," continued Marny, releasing his hold on Boggs's collar, "coming as they did on an empty stomach, made every man ravenous. French shrimps, Dutch pickles, and Swedish anchovies--all the appetizers you ever heard of--were mild compared to them. Uncle Jesse had opened them himself, the ten men standing around taking the contents of each sh.e.l.l from the end of Uncle Jesse's fork and then waiting their turns until the fork came their way again. All this was under a shed in full view of the harbor and the old man's boats and buildings.

"When the sun went down we went into the bar-room, and Uncle Jesse compounded a mixture which made an afternoon call on the five clams, and by that time we could have eaten each other. Six o'clock came, and no signs of anything. Half past six, and not the faintest smell of fried, boiled, or roasted: no hurrying waiters in sight; no maids in ap.r.o.ns; nothing indicating any preparation or any place for it to preparate in unless it was a room behind a small white-pine door which Uncle Jesse had locked in full view of the hungry crowd. Only once did he explain this mystery; that was when he jerked his thumb in the direction of the vacancy on the other side of the panels, and remarked sententiously, 'Won't be long now.'

"Soon a wild misgiving arose in our minds. Had anything happened to the cook, or would the simple repast--we had left the details to Uncle Jesse--consist of only clams and c.o.c.ktails?

"All this time Uncle Jesse was patient and polite, but almighty mysterious. Bets now began to be made in whispers by the men: It would be thin oyster soup, pumpkin pies, and cider; or cold corn beef and preserves; or, worse still, codfish b.a.l.l.s and griddle-cakes. Seven o'clock came--seven-five--seven-ten. Then a gong sounded in the next room, and Uncle Jesse sprang to the door, raised one hand while the other fumbled with the lock, and shouted as he swung back the door:

"'Solid men to the front!'

"You should have seen that table! One long perspective of bliss--porter-house steak and broiled blue-fish--porter-house steak and broiled blue-fish--porter-house steak and broiled blue-fish down to the end of the table; and alongside each plate a quart of extra-dry, frappeed to half a degree, and a pint of Burgundy the temperature of your sweet-heart's hand! All about were heaps of home-made bread and flakes of b.u.t.ter, and--Oh, that table!

"We stood paralyzed for a moment, and then sent up a roaring cheer that nearly lifted the roof. Uncle Jesse wasn't going to sit down, but we grabbed him by the shoulders and started him on the run for the end of the table, and there he sat until only heaps of bones and dead bottles marked the scene of action. Whenever a man could get his breath he broke out in song, everybody joining in. 'Oh, dem golden fritters!' was chanted to an accompaniment of clattering forks on empty plates, the cook and his staff craning their heads through the door and helping out with a double shuffle of their own.

"Coffee was served in the bar-room, and all filed out to drink it, every man full to his eyelids and saturated with a contentment that only Long Island blue-fish and Fulton Market steak with the necessary liquids and solids could produce.

"While we smoked on and sipped our coffee, Uncle Jesse's silences became more frequent, and soon the old fellow dozed off to sleep. He was over seventy then, and was used to having a nap after dinner.

"Now came the best part of the feast. Every man tiptoed out of the room, overhauled his sketch-trap, took out charcoal, color tubes and brushes, red chalk, whatever came handy, and started in to work--some standing on chairs above where the old man sat sound asleep, others working away like mad on the coa.r.s.e, whitewashed walls, making portraits of him--sketches of the landing and fish houses we had seen during our waiting--outlines of the bar and background, no one breathing loud or even whispering, so afraid they would wake him--until every square foot of the walls were covered with sketches. When we were through, someone coughed, and the old man sat up and began to rub his eyes. Pleased!

Well, I should think so! He gave one bound, made a tour of the room studying each sketch, dodged under his bar and began to set up things, and would have continued to set up things all night had we permitted it.

Every spring after that, when he rewhitewashed the old room, he would work carefully around each sketch, the new whitewash making a mat for the pictures. People came for miles up and down the bay to see them, and there was more extra-dry and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs sold that summer than ever before. Ever after that, whenever a friend of any member of the Stone Mugs went ash.o.r.e at Cap Tree Island, and after settling his score mentioned incidentally that he knew So-and-So of the Mugs, and had heard of the wonderful dinner, etc., the old man would always push his money back to him with:

"'Not a cent--not a cent! Stay a week and order what you want, and if you don't want everything in the house I'll get my gun.'"

"Haven't got a time-table, have you, Marny," asked Boggs feelingly, "of the boat that goes to Cap Tree Island?"

"Do you no good, Boggs," answered Jack Stirling. "The old man has been in heaven these ten years. I knew his broiled blue-fish--none better.

Marny is right--they were wonderful. But really, Marny, do you call that a good dinner?--ten men, fifteen bottles of a.s.sorted wines, five steaks, five broiled fish, and----"

"Well, what else would you call it? What would you want?" retorted Marny.

"What else? Oh, my dear Marny! and you ask that question!"

"Wasn't there enough to eat?"

"Plenty."

"Wine all right?"

"Perfect."

"Jolly crowd of the best fellows in the world?"

"Yes."

"What then?"

"What then, you fish-monger? Why, just one woman! Let me tell you of a dinner!"

Jack was on his feet now, his hand outstretched, his eyes partly closed as if the scene he was about to describe lay immediately beneath his gaze.

"It was on a balcony overlooking St. Cloud--all Paris swimming in a golden haze. There were violets--and a pair of long gray gloves on the white cloth--and a wide-brimmed hat crowned with roses, shading a pair of brown eyes. Oh! such eyes! 'A pint of Chablis,' I said to the waiter; 'sole a la Marguerey, some broiled mushrooms, and a fruit salad--and please take the candles away; we prefer the twilight.'

"But the perfume of the violets--and the lifting of her lashes--and the way she looked at me, and----"

[Ill.u.s.tration: But the perfume of the violets and the way she looked at me.]

Jack stopped, bent over, and gazed into the smouldering coals of the now dying fire.