Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1892-04-29
SECURITY DEMANDED FOR MEALS.
Odd Ways That Lovers Have for Paying
for Theater Suppers.

| 1OT 1ueaCtr Suppcrss
The restaurant was crowded. At the
table on the reporters right sat tall,
straight haired young man with glasses,
| and his companion was girl of eighteen,
who seemed to be in the last stages of con-
sumption. She was hollow eyed and hol-
| low checked, and she was so pale faced that
the writer supposed she had come for a
| glass of wine to give her strength to get
| home.
| The young mans order was very simple.
ALI he wanted was a cup of coffee and a
| roll. The young woman took the menu
and read it over twice in cool and delib-
crate way, and then ordered fried oysters,
| coffee, rolls, cake, potatoes, cold turkey
| and four or five other things-a hearty
meal for laboring man.
'That's queer thing" said the re-
porter to the manager, who had taken a
seat beside him.
mot bit queer" he answered. GIN
fact, it is what might be expected. Out of
any dozen couples who come in here after
the theater for lunch at least ten Of the
females will eat twice as much as their es-
corts. They come to make regular meal,
and it's astonishing how much they can
get away with. I honestly believe that
most of them go without their o'clock
dinner in order to get up good appetite
at this time"
'Does large woman cat more than a
little one?"
mo, sir; the reverse is the case. Look
over there at that third table at the right.
There's a girl who doesn't weigh much
over 100 pounds, and you can see what a
spread she's ordered. There's food enough
to make a longshoreman good meal, and
you can see how uneasy her young man is F"
"Why?"
because it's going to be close figuring
whether he's got enough cash to pay the
bill. These young fellows you see in here
are mostly salary men, working on from
fifteen to twenty-five dollars per week.
These lunch bills on top of the theater
tickets and coupe bills sometimes pinch
them very close. The girl doesn't know
this, or if she does she doesn't care"
"Then it sometimes happens that the
young man can't square up with your
cashier?"
SIT happens every night. I expect the
cashier could show us two or three watches
and dozen pins and rings waiting to be
redeemed. But that's private, you know"
"Then you don't raise row if the young
man can't pay you?"
'tFar from it. There's case at the desk
now"
A young man, who was looking very red
in the face and was plainly very much en-
barrassed, was holding a confidential con-
versation with the cashier. He slipped a
ring off his finger and passed it in, wrote
his address on a slip of paper, and returned
to the table where his girl was still eating
away as if she had just been taken off a
desert island.
Suppose he hadn't had anything to put
up?'
eve should have taken his address and
let him call later to square the account"
s'Would he have done SOP"
"Most certainly. I've known scores of
cases, and 1 don't remember one instance
on his honor, you see. 1t would be like
going back on his girl to beat u.s.
''How much of bill did you ever see a
couple make here?"
s'Six dollars, and the young man hadn't
but forty cents in cash. He was clerk on
a salary of nine dollars per week, and he
left ten dollar watch as security. He
was two months paying that BILL"
'And did he marry the girl?"
"No. Within two weeks she was in here
with another young man, and I've seen
her with different ones since. The wait
ers call her Miss Appetite. Her check
is never less than $1.5O, and if she's feeling
good her escort goes out of here dead broke
and wading in sorrow up to his neck."-
Chicago Inter Ocean.