Part 10 (2/2)

[FOOTNOTE 27: The Menger Hotel was (and still is) a San Antonio landmark. Built in 1859 near the Alamo, its guests haave included Robert E. Lee, U. S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Sarah Bernhardt.]

[FOOTNOTE 28: suaderos--O. Henry uses this term in several stories. He probably meant ”sudaderos,” which are saddle blankets or pads. The term is also sometimes used to refer to pads that prevent the stirrup straps from rubbing the rider's leg. O. Henry undoubtedly picked up the word during his stay on South Texas ranches, but he probably never saw the word written, and ”suaderos” was what he came up with many years later when writing. This annotator is grateful to Michael K. DeWitt of Oklahoma State University for explaining this reference.]

”'Now,' says I to Solly, with a wink at myself, 'here's the first dinner-station we've struck where we can get a real good plate of beans.' And while he was up in his room trying to draw water out of the gas-pipe, I got one finger in the b.u.t.tonhole of the head waiter's Tuxedo, drew him apart, inserted a two-dollar bill, and closed him up again.

”'Frankoyse,' says I, 'I have a pal here for dinner that's been subsisting for years on cereals and short stogies. You see the chef and order a dinner for us such as you serve to Dave Francis and the general pa.s.senger agent of the Iron Mountain when they eat here.

We've got more than Bernhardt's tent full of money; and we want the nose-bags crammed with all the Chief Deveries _de cuisine_. Object is no expense. Now, show us.'

”At six o'clock me and Solly sat down to dinner. Spread! There's nothing been seen like it since the Cambon snack [29]. It was all served at once. The chef called it _dinnay a la poker_. It's a famous thing among the gormands of the West. The dinner comes in threes of a kind.

There was guinea-fowls, guinea-pigs, and Guinness's stout; roast veal, mock turtle soup, and chicken pate; shad-roe, caviar, and tapioca; canvas-back duck, canvas-back ham, and cotton-tail rabbit; Philadelphia capon, fried snails, and sloe-gin--and so on, in threes. The idea was that you eat nearly all you can of them, and then the waiter takes away the discard and gives you pears to fill on.

[FOOTNOTE 29: Cambon snack--This term eludes definitive explanation. It might refer to the brothers Paul and Jules Cambon. Paul was the French amba.s.sador to Great Britain from 1898 to 1920; in 1904 he negotiated the Entente Cordiale between France and Britain that was the basis for their alliance in World War I. Jules was the French amba.s.sador to the U.S. from 1897 to 1902 and was the French amba.s.sador to Germany at the outbreak of World War I.]

”I was sure Solly would be tickled to death with these hands, after the bobtail flushes he'd been eating on the ranch; and I was a little anxious that he should, for I didn't remember his having honoured my efforts with a smile since we left Atascosa City.

”We were in the main dining-room, and there was a fine-dressed crowd there, all talking loud and enjoyable about the two St. Louis topics, the water supply and the colour line. They mix the two subjects so fast that strangers often think they are discussing water-colours; and that has given the old town something of a rep as an art centre. And over in the corner was a fine bra.s.s band playing; and now, thinks I, Solly will become conscious of the spiritual oats of life nouris.h.i.+ng and exhilarating his system. But _nong, mong frang_.

”He gazed across the table at me. There was four square yards of it, looking like the path of a cyclone that has wandered through a stock-yard, a poultry-farm, a vegetable-garden, and an Irish linen mill. Solly gets up and comes around to me.

”'Luke,' says he, 'I'm pretty hungry after our ride. I thought you said they had some beans here. I'm going out and get something I can eat. You can stay and monkey with this artificial layout of grub if you want to.'

”'Wait a minute,' says I.

”I called the waiter, and slapped 'S. Mills' on the back of the check for thirteen dollars and fifty cents.

”'What do you mean,' says I, 'by serving gentlemen with a lot of truck only suitable for deck-hands on a Mississippi steamboat? We're going out to get something decent to eat.'

”I walked up the street with the unhappy plainsman. He saw a saddle-shop open, and some of the sadness faded from his eyes. We went in, and he ordered and paid for two more saddles--one with a solid silver horn and nails and ornaments and a six-inch border of rhinestones and imitation rubies around the flaps. The other one had to have a gold-mounted horn, quadruple-plated stirrups, and the leather inlaid with silver beadwork wherever it would stand it. Eleven hundred dollars the two cost him.

”Then he goes out and heads toward the river, following his nose. In a little side street, where there was no street and no sidewalks and no houses, he finds what he is looking for. We go into a shanty and sit on high stools among stevedores and boatmen, and eat beans with tin spoons. Yes, sir, beans--beans boiled with salt pork.

”'I kind of thought we'd strike some over this way,' says Solly.

”'Delightful,' says I, 'That stylish hotel grub may appeal to some; but for me, give me the husky _table d'goat_.'

”When we had succ.u.mbed to the beans I leads him out of the tarpaulin-steam under a lamp post and pulls out a daily paper with the amus.e.m.e.nt column folded out.

”'But now, what ho for a merry round of pleasure,' says I. 'Here's one of Hall Caine's shows [30], and a stock-yard company in ”Hamlet,”

and skating at the Hollowhorn Rink, and Sarah Bernhardt, and the Shapely Syrens Burlesque Company. I should think, now, that the Shapely--'

[FOOTNOTE 30: Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine (1853-1931) was a very popular British novelist and playwright in his day, but his works have now been largely forgotten. As of July, 2004, two of his books, _The Christian_ and _The Scapegoat_, can be found in Project Gutenberg's library.]

”But what does this healthy, wealthy, and wise man do but reach his arms up to the second-story windows and gape noisily.

”'Reckon I'll be going to bed,' says he; 'it's about my time. St.

Louis is a kind of quiet place, ain't it?'

”'Oh, yes,' says I; 'ever since the railroads ran in here the town's been practically ruined. And the building-and-loan a.s.sociations and the fair have about killed it. Guess we might as well go to bed. Wait till you see Chicago, though. Shall we get tickets for the Big Breeze to-morrow?'

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