Letitia declined to argue. My mood was that known as cranky. We were in
the drawing-room, after what we were compelled to call dinner. It had
consisted of steak burned to cinders, potatoes soaked to a pulp, and a
rice pudding that looked like a poultice the morning after, and possibly
tasted like one. Letitia had been shopping, and was therefore unable to
supervise. Our delicate repast was capped by "black" coffee of an
indefinite straw-color, and with globules of grease on the surface.
People who can feel elated with the joy of living, after a dinner of
this description, are assuredly both mentally and morally lacking. Men
and women there are who will say: "Oh, give me anything. I'm not
particular--so long as it is plain and wholesome." I've met many of
these people. My experience of them is that they are the greatest
gluttons on earth, with veritably voracious appetites, and that the best
isn't good enough for them. To be sure, at a pinch, they will demolish a
score of potatoes, if there be nothing else; but offer them caviare,
canvas-back duck, quail, and nesselrode pudding, and they will look
askance at food that is plain and wholesome. The "plain and wholesome"
liver is a snare and a delusion, like the "bluff and genial" visitor
whose geniality veils all sorts of satire and merciless comment.

Letitia and I both felt weak and miserable. We had made up our minds not
to dine out. We were resolved to keep the home up, even if, in return,
the home kept us down. Give in, we wouldn't. Our fighting blood was up.
We firmly determined not to degenerate into that clammy American
institution, the boarding-house feeder and the restaurant diner. We
knew the type; in the feminine, it sits at table with its bonnet on, and
a sullen gnawing expression of animal hunger; in the masculine, it puts
its own knife in the butter, and uses a toothpick. No cook--no lack of
cook--should drive us to these abysmal depths.