“This is highly diverting,” I said. “Apparently we go down this passage.
Come on, everyone seems bound the same way. We won't get a seat unless
we make haste.”
Dulcet was gazing reflectively at the sandwich boards. His blue eyes had
a quizzical twinkle.
“For God, for country, and for Yule,” he said. “Queer that this should
happen on Ann Street. I seem to remember----”
“Queer that it should happen anywhere,” I interrupted him. “It's a
clever advertising stunt, anyway--100 meals for $10. It seems too good
to be true.”
“The only thing I'm afraid of,” he said, “is that it is literally true.”
“Walk in, gents, give us a try,” cried the sandwich man. “Try anything
once, gents.”
“Come on, Dove,” I said, seeing that others were crowding ahead of us
down the alley. “None of your paradoxes!”
The narrow passage turned into a courtyard overlooked by old grimy
warehouses with iron-shuttered windows. In one corner was a fine
substantial brick building with a rounded front, and a long flight of
wooden stairs that seemed to lead up to a marine junk shop, for old
sea-boots and ships' lanterns and fenders hung along the wall. In a
basement was an iron foundry where we could see the bright glow of a
forge. Halfway down the little area was a low door with a huge stone
lintel-piece over which was a large canvas sign: _the commutation
chophouse_.
*****
I must confess to an irrational affection for quaint eating places, and
having explored downtown New York's crowded cafés and lunchrooms rather
carefully in quest of a congenial tavern, the Commutation Chophouse
struck me as highly original and pleasing. We stepped down into a very
large and rather dark cellar that apparently had previously been used as
a carpenter's shop, for a good many traces of the earlier tenancy were
still visible. The furnishings were of the plainest, consisting simply
of heavy wooden tables and benches. There was no linen on the tables,
but the wood had been scrubbed scrupulously clean and there were piles
of tissue napkins. From a door at the back waiters came rushing with
trays of food. A glorious clatter of knives and forks filled the air,
and it looked at first as though we would find no place to sit. As Dove
expressed it, the room was loaded to the muzzle; and a continuous stream
of patrons was coming down the alley, allured by the sandwich man and
the absurd thin gayety of the fiddle. By the front door stood a dark
young man, behind a small counter, selling tickets.
“One meal for a dollar,” he cried, repeatedly, as he took in money. “One
hundred meals for ten dollars. Get your commutation tickets here.”
“We'll try two single meals to begin with,” I said, and put down a
ten-dollar bill.
The young man rummaged in a drawer full of greasy notes to get the
change. “Better get a commutation,” he said. “Tremendous saving.”
“I should think you'd need a cash register,” said Dulcet. “Handling all
that kale, it would be useful in keeping the accounts straight.”
The young man looked up sharply.
“Say,” he retorted, “what are you, mister? Cash-register salesman? Step
along please, don't block the gangway. Next! Seats in the rear! No,
commutation tickets not transferable. Good only to the purchaser. Ten
dollars, please. Next!”
“They seem to be coining money,” said Dove, as we found places at last
in a rear corner.
“Well,” I said, “this is just the kind of place I like. By Jove, this
building must be well over a hundred years old. Look at those beams
in the ceiling. All they need is a few sporting prints and an open
fireplace. Lit by candles, too, you see. Well, well, this is the real
alehouse atmosphere. Why, it's as good as the Cheshire Cheese. This is
the kind of place where I can imagine Doctor Johnson and Charles Lamb
sitting in a corner.”
“You are an incurable sentimentalist,” he said. “Besides, Lamb would
have had to sit on Johnson's knee, I expect. If I remember rightly, Lamb
was a very small urchin when Doctor Johnson died.”
“Why be so literal?” I protested. “Haven't you any sentiment for fine
antique flavour, and all that sort of thing?”
“If there is one thing where sentiment plays no part with me,” he said,
“it is food. At meal times I am distinctly a realist. Fine antique
flavour is rather upsetting when you find it in your meat. But still,”
he continued, “I must admit this looks good.” He beamed approvingly at
the thick chop and baked potatoes and beans and coffee the waiter had
put down in front of us.
“Evidently you don't order your food,” I said. “They give you the
standardized meal of the day. Fall to! These beans baked in cheese
strike me as excellent.”
I have never seen waiters rush around with such speed as they did in
that crowded cellar, where flickering candle-gleams cast a tawny light
over the crowded tables of men packed shoulder to shoulder. They flashed
in and out through the rear door like men possessed. They careered in
with trays of steaming viands, crashed them down on the bare tables, and
fled out again, napkins streaming behind them like pennants. Once they
had delivered your food it seemed impossible to catch their gaze, for we
tried to hail one to ask for ketchup. It was no use. He flew hither and
yon with frantic and single-minded energy.
“These waiters speed like dervishes,” I said. “Evidently the no-tip rule
does not lessen their zeal.”
“Perhaps they get a share in the profits of the enterprise,” said
Dulcet, placidly.
Just behind us was a small barred window looking out on a street. It
was at the ground level, and looking through the dusty pane I could see
horses' hoofs going by, and the feet of pedestrians. Suddenly there was
a great clang and crash outside, and I turned to look.
“What's up?” said Dulcet, who was cheerfully disposing of his chop as
well as his neighbour's elbow would permit him.
“They seem to have spilled some beans,” I said, peering through the
dusky aperture. “There's a truck delivering food or something at the
back door. They've tipped over a can, I think.”
“Spilled some beans?” he said, with his first sign of real interest.
“That sounds symbolic. Let me have a look.”
He stood up on the bench and gazed outward. Presently he sat down again
and went on calmly with his meal. Some excellent cheese cake was brought
us as dessert.
“That alley behind us,” he said. “I suppose it communicates with Beekman
Street, doesn't it?”
“I guess so. Why?”
“Just wondering. Ben, I apologize for my skepticism. The food here is
jolly good. In fact, it's so good that I think I've tasted it before. I
am your debtor for a very enlarging experience. And now, as the crowd is
becoming almost oppressive, and I can see that there are others eager to
commute, suppose we smoke our cigars outdoors.”
“Right you are,” I said. “And since the food is eatable, and I happen
to have the money with me, I think I'll invest in one of those strip
tickets. Everyone else seems to be doing it, and it looks to me a good
way to save money. A hundred lunches--why, that will see me through till
spring. I don't think I'll get tired of eating here, it's so amusing.”
“No,” said Dove, as he picked up his hat, “I don't think you'll get
tired of eating here. Perhaps the money will be well spent.”
I bought my commutation, and we stood in the shabby old courtyard for a
few minutes watching the crowd stream in. A good many, I noticed, though
unable to find seats, still took advantage of the opening-day offer and
bought the hundred meal tickets for future consumption.
“The only drawback about this place is the crowd,” I said. “If this
keeps up, half of downtown New York will be eating here.”
“Look here,” said Dove, “I think I shall be down this way again
to-morrow. It's my turn to buy. Will you lunch with me then? We'll
celebrate the jovial Yule together.”
“Fine,” I said. “Meet you at the old red newspaper-box at the corner of
Broadway and Vesey to-morrow at 12 o'clock.”
*****
We were both there punctually.
“Have you got your appetite with you?” asked Dove. “It's a bit early for
feasting, but it'll give us time for a stroll after lunch.”
“Where do we eat?” I said. “Commutation again? It's all velvet to me,
anyway, all my lunches are paid for for the next three months.”
“There's a little place on Beekman Street I used to know,” he said.
“Let's try that.”
We found a corner table in an odd old eating house at the corner of
Beekman and Gold streets, which I had never seen before.
“I'm a great believer in tit for tat, fair play, and all that sort
of thing,” said Dulcet when the waiter approached. “You gave me an
excellent lunch yesterday. I intend to give you the same lunch to-day,
if you can stand eating it again. Waiter! Mutton chop, baked potato,
baked beans, coffee, and cheese cake. For two.”
When the beans came, baked with cheese in a little brown dish, just as
they were served the day before, I must confess that I was startled.
“Why, these beans are done exactly like those we had at the
Commutation,” I said. “Are these people doing the cooking for the
chop-house?”
“Perhaps you'll have to eat chop and beans for a hundred lunches,”
Dulcet said. “Well, it's a hearty diet. After all, the sandwich boards
simply said a hundred meals. They didn't guarantee that they would be
different.”
I insisted that on our way back toward the office we should stop at the
Commutation Chophouse and find out from a customer what the bill of fare
had been on the second day. The vision of a hundred repetitions of any
meal, however good, is rather ghastly.
“I don't hear the minstrel to-day,” Dove observed as we drew near the
alley.
“Oh, well,” I said, “that was just to draw business for the opening.”
We turned down the passage at No. 59. Quite a crowd of patrons were
waiting their turn, I saw. They were standing in the courtyard by the
chop-house door, talking busily.
“You see,” I said, “it's still crowded.”
We reached the entrance. The door was closed. The sign over the doorway
now had additional lettering painted on it, and read: