A Tramp Abroad — Volume 07 by Mark Twain
page 72 of 159 (45%)
page 72 of 159 (45%)
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the long white bone which divides the sirloin from the
tenderloin still in its place; and imagine that the angel also adds a great cup of American home-made coffee, with a cream a-froth on top, some real butter, firm and yellow and fresh, some smoking hot-biscuits, a plate of hot buckwheat cakes, with transparent syrup--could words describe the gratitude of this exile? The European dinner is better than the European breakfast, but it has its faults and inferiorities; it does not satisfy. He comes to the table eager and hungry; he swallows his soup--there is an undefinable lack about it somewhere; thinks the fish is going to be the thing he wants --eats it and isn't sure; thinks the next dish is perhaps the one that will hit the hungry place--tries it, and is conscious that there was a something wanting about it, also. And thus he goes on, from dish to dish, like a boy after a butterfly which just misses getting caught every time it alights, but somehow doesn't get caught after all; and at the end the exile and the boy have fared about alike; the one is full, but grievously unsatisfied, the other has had plenty of exercise, plenty of interest, and a fine lot of hopes, but he hasn't got any butterfly. There is here and there an American who will say he can remember rising from a European table d'ho^te perfectly satisfied; but we must not overlook the fact that there is also here and there an American who will lie. The number of dishes is sufficient; but then it is such a monotonous variety of UNSTRIKING dishes. It is an inane |
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