Letitia made no feint at Ovid. I simply declined to breathe the breath
of _The Lives of Great Men_. She read a sweet little classic called "The
Table; How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It," by
Alessandro Filippini--a delightful _table-d'hôte_-y name. I lay back in
my chair and frowned, waiting until Letitia chose to break the silence.
As she was a most chattily inclined person on all occasions, I reasoned
that I should not have to wait long. I was right.

"Archie," said she, "according to this book, there is no place in the
civilized world that contains so large a number of so-called high-livers
as New York City, which was educated by the famous Delmonico and his
able lieutenants."

"Great Heaven!" I exclaimed with a groan, "why rub it in, Letitia? I
should also say that no city in the world contained so large a number of
low-livers."

"'Westward the course of Empire sways,'" she read, "'and the great glory
of the past has departed from those centers where the culinary art at
one time defied all rivals. The scepter of supremacy has passed into the
hands of the metropolis of the New World.'"

"What sickening cant!" I cried. "What fiendishly exaggerated restaurant
talk! There are perhaps fifty fine restaurants in New York. In Paris
there are five hundred finer. Here we have places to eat in; there they
have artistic resorts to dine in. One can dine anywhere in Paris. In New
York, save for those fifty fine restaurants, one feeds. Don't read any
more of your cook-book to me, my girl. It is written to catch the
American trade, with the subtile pen of flattery."