"'Emma,' he said, 'will you marry me?'"

'"Welcome home!' she cried. 'Sketch in the furniture to suit
yourself"'




I

ROAST BEEF, MEDIUM


There is a journey compared to which the travels of Bunyan's hero were
a summer-evening's stroll. The Pilgrims by whom this forced march is
taken belong to a maligned fraternity, and are known as traveling men.
Sample-case in hand, trunk key in pocket, cigar in mouth, brown derby
atilt at an angle of ninety, each young and untried traveler starts on
his journey down that road which leads through morasses of chicken _a
la_ Creole, over greasy mountains of queen fritters made doubly
perilous by slippery glaciers of rum sauce, into formidable jungles of
breaded veal chops threaded by sanguine and deadly streams of tomato
gravy, past sluggish mires of dreadful things _en casserole_, over
hills of corned-beef hash, across shaking quagmires of veal glace,
plunging into sloughs of slaw, until, haggard, weary, digestion
shattered, complexion gone, he reaches the safe haven of roast beef,
medium. Once there, he never again strays, although the pompadoured,
white-aproned siren sing-songs in his ear the praises of Irish stew,
and pork with apple sauce.