Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles of London and Paris, for the past
two months a social favourite in Red Gap’s select North Side
set, has decided to cast his lot among us and will henceforth
be reckoned as one of our leading business men. The plan of
the Colonel is nothing less than to give Red Gap a truly élite
and recherché restaurant after the best models of London and
Paris, to which purpose he will devote a considerable portion
of his ample means. The establishment will occupy the roomy
corner store of the Pettengill block, and orders have already
been placed for its decoration and furnishing, which will be
sumptuous beyond anything yet seen in our thriving metropolis.
In speaking of his enterprise yesterday, the Colonel remarked,
with a sly twinkle in his eye, “Demosthenes was the son of a
cutler, Cromwell’s father was a brewer, your General Grant was
a tanner, and a Mr. Garfield, who held, I gather, an important
post in your government, was once employed on a canal-ship, so
I trust that in this land of equality it will not be presumptuous
on my part to seek to become the managing owner of a restaurant
that will be a credit to the fastest growing town in the state.
“You Americans have,” continued the Colonel in his dry, inimitable
manner, “a bewildering variety of foodstuffs, but I trust I may
be forgiven for saying that you have used too little constructive
imagination in the cooking of it. In the one matter of tea,
for example, I have been obliged to figure in some episodes
that were profoundly regrettable. Again, amid the profusion of
fresh vegetables and meats, you are becoming a nation of tinned
food eaters, or canned food as you prefer to call it. This,
I need hardly say, adds to your cost of living and also makes
you liable to one of the most dreaded of modern diseases, a
disease whose rise can be traced to the rise of the tinned-food
industry. Your tin openers rasp into the tin with the result
that a fine sawdust of metal must drop into the contents and
so enter the human system. The result is perhaps negligible in
a large majority of cases, but that it is not universally so
is proved by the prevalence of appendicitis. Not orange or
grape pips, as was so long believed, but the deadly fine rain
of metal shavings must be held responsible for this scourge.
I need hardly say that at the United States Grill no tinned
food will be used.”
This latest discovery of the Colonel’s is important if true.
Be that as it may, his restaurant will fill a long-felt want,
and will doubtless prove to be an important factor in the social
gayeties of our smart set. Due notice of its opening will be
given in the news and doubtless in the advertising columns of
this journal.
Again I was brought to marvel at a peculiarity of the American press,
a certain childish eagerness for marvels and grotesque wonders. I had
given but passing thought to my remarks about appendicitis and its
relation to the American tinned-food habit, nor, on reading the chap’s
screed, did they impress me as being fraught with vital interest to
thinking people; in truth, I was more concerned with the comparison of
myself to a restaurateur of the crude new city of New York, which
might belittle rather than distinguish me, I suspected. But what was
my astonishment to perceive in the course of a few days that I had
created rather a sensation, with attending newspaper publicity which,
although bizarre enough, I am bound to say contributed not a little to
the consideration in which I afterward came to be held by the more
serious-minded persons of Red Gap.
Busied with the multitude of details attending my installation, I was
called upon by another press chap, representing a Spokane sheet, who
wished me to elaborate my views concerning the most probable cause of
appendicitis, which I found myself able to do with some eloquence,
reciting among other details that even though the metal dust might be
of an almost microscopic fineness, it could still do a mischief to
one’s appendix. The press chap appeared wholly receptive to my views,
and, after securing details of my plan to smarten Red Gap with a
restaurant of real distinction, he asked so civilly for a photographic
portrait of myself that I was unable to refuse him. The thing was a
snap taken of me one morning at Chaynes-Wotten by Higgins, the butler,
as I stood by his lordship’s saddle mare. It was not by any means the
best likeness I have had, but there was a rather effective bit of
background disclosing the driveway and the façade of the East Wing.
This episode I had well-nigh forgotten when on the following Sunday I
found the thing emblazoned across a page of the Spokane sheet under a
shrieking headline: “Can Opener Blamed for Appendicitis.” A secondary
heading ran, “Famous British Sportsman and Bon Vivant Advances Novel
Theory.” Accompanying this was a print of the photograph entitled,
“Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles with His Favourite Hunter, at His English
Country Seat.”
Although the article made suitable reference to myself and my
enterprise, it was devoted chiefly to a discussion of my tin-opening
theory and was supplemented by a rather snarky statement signed by a
physician declaring it to be nonsense. I thought the fellow might have
chosen his words with more care, but again dismissed the matter from
my mind. Yet this was not to be the last of it. In due time came a New
York sheet with a most extraordinary page. “Titled Englishman Learns
Cause of Appendicitis,” read the heading in large, muddy type. Below
was the photograph of myself, now entitled, “Sir Marmaduke Ruggles and
His Favourite Hunter.” But this was only one of the illustrations.
From the upper right-hand corner a gigantic hand wielding a tin-opener
rained a voluminous spray of metal, presumably, upon a cowering wretch
in the lower left-hand corner, who was quite plainly all in. There
were tables of statistics showing the increase, side by side of
appendicitis and the tinned-food industry, a matter to which I had
devoted, said the print, years of research before announcing my
discovery. Followed statements from half a dozen distinguished
surgeons, each signed autographically, all but one rather bluntly
disagreeing with me, insisting that the tin-opener cuts cleanly and,
if not man’s best friend, should at least be considered one of the
triumphs of civilization. The only exception announced that he was at
present conducting laboratory experiments with a view to testing my
theory and would disclose his results in due time. Meantime, he
counselled the public to be not unduly alarmed.
Of the further flood of these screeds, which continued for the better
part of a year, I need not speak. They ran the gamut from serious
leaders in medical journals to paid ridicule of my theory in
advertisements printed by the food-tinning persons, and I have to
admit that in the end the public returned to a full confidence in its
tinned foods. But that is beside the point, which was that Red Gap had
become intensely interested in the United States Grill, and to this I
was not averse, though I would rather I had been regarded as one of
their plain, common sort, instead of the fictitious Colonel which
Cousin Egbert’s well-meaning stupidity had foisted upon the town. The
“Sir Marmaduke Ruggles and His Favourite Hunter” had been especially
repugnant to my finer taste, particularly as it was seized upon by the
cheap one-and-six fellow Hobbs for some of his coarsest humour, he
more than once referring to that detestable cur of Mrs. Judson’s, who
had quickly resumed his allegiance to me, as my “hunting pack.”
The other tradesmen of the town, I am bound to say, exhibited a
friendly interest in my venture which was always welcome and often
helpful. Even one of my competitors showed himself to be a dead sport
by coming to me from time to time with hints and advice. He was an
entirely worthy person who advertised his restaurant as “Bert’s
Place.” “Go to Bert’s Place for a Square Meal,” was his favoured line
in the public prints. He, also, I regret to say, made a practice of
displaying cooked foods in his show-window, the window carrying the
line in enamelled letters, “Tables Reserved for Ladies.”
Of course between such an establishment and my own there could be
little in common, and I was obliged to reject a placard which he
offered me, reading, “No Checks Cashed. This Means You!” although he
and Cousin Egbert warmly advised that I display it in a conspicuous
place. “Some of them dead beats in the North Side set will put you
sideways if you don’t,” warned the latter, but I held firmly to the
line of quiet refinement which I had laid down, and explained that I
could allow no such inconsiderate mention of money to be obtruded upon
the notice of my guests. I would devise some subtler protection
against the dead beet-roots.
In the matter of music, however, I was pleased to accept the advice of
Cousin Egbert. “Get one of them musical pianos that you put a nickel
in,” he counselled me, and this I did, together with an assorted
repertoire of selections both classical and popular, the latter
consisting chiefly of the ragging time songs to which the native
Americans perform their folkdances.
And now, as the date of my opening drew near, I began to suspect that
its social values might become a bit complicated. Mrs. Belknap-Jackson,
for example, approached me in confidence to know if she might reserve
all the tables in my establishment for the opening evening, remarking
that it would be as well to put the correct social cachet upon the
place at once, which would be achieved by her inviting only the
desirable people. Though she was all for settling the matter at once,
something prompted me to take it under consideration.
The same evening Mrs. Effie approached me with a similar suggestion,
remarking that she would gladly take it upon herself to see that the
occasion was unmarred by the presence of those one would not care to
meet in one’s own home. Again I was non-committal, somewhat to her
annoyance.
The following morning I was sought by Mrs. Judge Ballard with the
information that much would depend upon my opening, and if the matter
were left entirely in her hands she would be more than glad to insure
its success. Of her, also, I begged a day’s consideration, suspecting
then that I might be compelled to ask these three social leaders to
unite amicably as patronesses of an affair that was bound to have a
supreme social significance. But as I still meditated profoundly over
the complication late that afternoon, overlooking in the meanwhile an
electrician who was busy with my shaded candlesticks, I was surprised
by the self-possessed entrance of the leader of the Bohemian set, the
Klondike person of whom I have spoken. Again I was compelled to
observe that she was quite the most smartly gowned woman in Red Gap,
and that she marvellously knew what to put on her head.
She coolly surveyed my decorations and such of the furnishings as were
in place before addressing me.
“I wish to engage one of your best tables,” she began, “for your
opening night--the tenth, isn’t it?--this large one in the corner will
do nicely. There will be eight of us. Your place really won’t be half
bad, if your food is at all possible.”
The creature spoke with a sublime effrontery, quite as if she had not
helped a few weeks before to ridicule all that was best in Red Gap
society, yet there was that about her which prevented me from rebuking
her even by the faintest shade in my manner. More than this, I
suddenly saw that the Bohemian set would be a factor in my trade which
I could not afford to ignore. While I affected to consider her request
she tapped the toe of a small boot with a correctly rolled umbrella,
lifting her chin rather attractively meanwhile to survey my freshly
done ceiling. I may say here that the effect of her was most
compelling, and I could well understand the bitterness with which the
ladies of the Onwards and Upwards Society had gossiped her to rags.
Incidently, this was the first correctly rolled umbrella, saving my
own, that I had seen in North America.
“I shall be pleased,” I said, “to reserve this table for you--eight
places, I believe you said?”
She left me as a duchess might have. She was that sort. I felt almost
quite unequal to her. And the die was cast. I faced each of the three
ladies who had previously approached me with the declaration that I
was a licensed victualler, bound to serve all who might apply. That
while I was keenly sensitive to the social aspects of my business, it
was yet a business, and I must, therefore, be in supreme control. In
justice to myself I could not exclusively entertain any faction of the
North Side set, nor even the set in its entirety. In each instance, I
added that I could not debar from my tables even such members of the
Bohemian set as conducted themselves in a seemly manner. It was a
difficult situation, calling out all my tact, yet I faced it with a
firmness which was later to react to my advantage in ways I did not
yet dream of.
So engrossed for a month had I been with furnishers, decorators, char
persons, and others that the time of the Honourable George’s arrival
drew on quite before I realized it. A brief and still snarky note had
apprised me of his intention to come out to North America, whereupon I
had all but forgotten him, until a telegram from Chicago or one of
those places had warned me of his imminence. This I displayed to
Cousin Egbert, who, much pleased with himself, declared that the
Honourable George should be taken to the Floud home directly upon his
arrival.
“I meant to rope him in there on the start,” he confided to me, “but I
let on I wasn’t decided yet, just to keep ‘em stirred up. Mrs. Effie
she butters me up with soft words every day of my life, and that
Jackson lad has offered me about ten thousand of them vegetable
cigarettes, but I’ll have to throw him down. He’s the human flivver.
Put him in a car of dressed beef and he’d freeze it between here and
Spokane. Yes, sir; you could cut his ear off and it wouldn’t bleed. I
ain’t going to run the Judge against no such proposition like that.”
Of course the poor chap was speaking his own backwoods metaphor, as I
am quite sure he would have been incapable of mutilating
Belknap-Jackson, or even of imprisoning him in a goods van of beef. I
mean to say, it was merely his way of speaking and was not to be taken
at all literally.
As a result of his ensuing call upon the pressman, the sheet of the
following morning contained word of the Honourable George’s coming,
the facts being not garbled more than was usual with this chap.