# Tales from a Rolltop Desk/The Commutation Chophouse

THE COMMUTATION CHOPHOUSE
It was two days before Christmas, and Dove Dulcet had come down town to have lunch with me. As he had arrived rather early, we were taking a little stroll round the bright, windy streets before our meal, enjoying the colour and movement of the scene. We stopped by St. Paul's churchyard to note the curious contrast of the old chocolate spire relieved against the huge glittering shaft of the Woolworth Building. At the noon hour St. Paul's stands in the dark shadow of the great cliffs to the south, while the Woolworth pinnacle leaps up like a spearhead into the golden vacancy of day-long sunshine.
"Saint Paul in the shadow, Saint Frank in the sun," said Dove with gentle irony. "It seems to prove that ten cents put in the cash register gets nearer Heaven than ten cents dropped in the collection plate."
When Dove is philosophical, he is always full of quaint matter, but I was hardly heeding what he said. My eye had been caught by a crowd gath​ered at the corner of Church Street. Over the heads of the throng was a winking spark of light that flashed this way and that as though spun from a turning mirror.
"Let's go and see what's doing," I said. My poet friend is always docile, and he followed me down Fulton Street.
"It looks to me like a silk hat," he said.
And so it was. On the corner of the pavement stood a tall, stout, and very well-nourished man with a ruddy face, wearing shabby but still presentable cutaway coat and gray trousers, and crowned by a steep and glittering stovepipe hat which twinkled like a heliograph in the dazzling winter glare. But, most amazing, when we elbowed a passage through the jocular crowd, we saw that this personable individual was wearing, instead of an overcoat, two large sandwich boards vigorously lettered as follows:
"Do all the hundred meals have to be eaten to-day?" asked Dulcet. "If so, the task is beyond my powers."
"Like the man in the Bible," I said, "he probably rented his garments. But he couldn't rent that admirable abdomen that proclaims him a well-fed man. It seems to me a very sound ad. for the chophouse."
"Unquestionably," said my friend, gravely, "he is the man who put the ad in adipose."
The sandwich man, unabashed by these remarks, handed me one of his cards, which Dulcet and I read together:
K. Jefferson Gastric, the best-fed man south of 42nd Street, takes this importunity of urging you to become a steakholder in the Commutation Chophouse. Why pay for overhead expense? In the Commutation Chophouse all unnecessaries are discarded and you pay only for food, not for finger-bowls and a lovely female cashier. No tips. To-day Only, the Opening Day, to celebrate the jovial Yule, the management will sell Strip Tickets entitling you to 100 Glorious Meals, for $10.
At this point a policeman politely urged Mr. Gastric to move on, and he passed genially down ​Church Street, his resplendent hat glowing above a trail of followers.
"Come on," I said; "it's time to eat, anyway. Let's go over to Ann Street and have a look at this philanthropic venture."
"Well," said Dulcet, "since it's your turn to buy, far be it from me to protest."
The narrow channel of Ann Street is always crowded at the lunch hour, but on that occasion it was doubly congested with patrons of the amusing toyshops. We pushed patiently along, and passing Nassau Street moved into a darker and shabbier region. A sound of music rose upon the air. To our surprise, at the entrance to an unsuspected alley stood a fiddler playing a merry jig. Beside him was another sandwich man, also stout and well-favoured and in Fifth-Avenue attire, carrying boards which read:
"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. Half​way 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 ​Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/153 ​Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/154 ​Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/155 ​Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/156 ​Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/157 ​Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/158 ​Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/159 ​Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/160 ​We stood at the gateway of the graveyard, and gazed across the roaring traffic of Broadway. Dove smiled and said he must be starting on his Christmas shopping.
"I tried to warn you," he said, "but you wouldn't listen. As I was about to say just before we visited the place, it was queer that it should happen on Ann Street. Don't you remember that a certain famous gentleman had his museum at the corner of Broadway and Ann? And it was he, I think, who remarked that there's one born every minute. Well, Merry Christmas!"