Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-07
WATCHING EN- EAT
IS A WI
~ VIII
WHILE ago." observed the man
who sees things, II caught an
min

AZ ~ 114LH 26Os cStNOu ShS AAAoh
"a who sees things, Il caught an
old. dyspetic friend of min.
doing q curious stunt. He was watching
q gang Of negro street PAYERS eating
their MONDAY meal. He watched them
with q sort Of fascinated gaze. The feats
they were accomplishing; in the way Of
projecting absolutely impossible things
into their systems seemed weird and al
most uncanny to my dyspeptic friend
One Of the negroes. particularly, seemed
to hold the enraptured focus Of my
friends vision. This negro had for his
monday feed two gigantic sandwiches,
composed of thick hunks of boiled salt
pork stuck between big slabs of bread.
He gulped these two sandwiches In about
four bites, and then licked his chops In
a hungry sort of way, as IL they'd only
about tasted like more to him, II more
were to be had. 1t was a spellbinding
spectacle In the view of my dyspeptic
friend 1t looked Incredible. out Of the
question. 1t seemed to him such spec
tacle as might be afforded by the. sight
of boa constructor feeding on q full
sized and kicking donkey.
Enjoy that STUFF he asked the big
darkey.
Had he enjoyed it? The darkey grim
ned and licked his chops suggestiveiy.
=" Gould you eat any more o that junk:
he asked the big negro. b..
The negro invited him to try him
dared him, In fact, to find out. -: -
Get couple more of those sand
wiche& my friend saio to the black. and
gave him the money to pay for them az
the wagon presided over py tn the negro
The black sat down with the other
two huge salt pork sandwiches and put
them away with the same easy ana
facile junction that he had exhibited In
- M
stood and watched him as he put 'em
away. Then he shook his head over
and over again. He couldn't understand
it. 1t was beyond reason. His own
diet consisted of little milk with gra-
ham Japafers. and the idea that any two
legged creature could get away with,
much less like, such terrific mess as
those four salt pork sandwiches came to
oh, It was the world upside down, that
was all.
minded me of a rather celebrated char
acter who used to live in Washington
many years ago-noW long in the lano
of the beyond. He was noted wit and
bon Vivant. But through excessive and
kinkish eating and misunderstanding
particularly-he had quite ruined his
stomach long before 1 ever met him. He
had ruined it so thoroughly that'he could
eat nothing but frozen fOOd-froZen con-
sommes, frozen fruits, frozen creams and
the like. In fact, he existed almost wholly
on ice cream, which was made particularly
for him by a chef whom he employed
for fixing up his frozen foods. Hot STUN
of any sort was poison to this man with
even morsel of the sort Of natural food
we ordinary mortals partake of would
have put him out of the game entirely:
$50, with praiseworthy philosophy, this
clever and accomplished man resigned
himself to the system of getting his
CT nv That lS TO
say, he'd enjoy watching other folks eat
He'd provide the ways and means He'd
do all of the buying. I've enjoyed some
rare old feasts. myself, at that man 5
the good eaters, with a perfect stomach,
whom he had on his list.
He'd find out the stuff that 1 or any
of the others liked the most, and then
he'd have us to his house to partake of
that stuff There'd be terrapin, perfectly
cooked game of all kinds, rich!y-hxed
vegetables ornate and rich pastries. ex-
traordinarily fine coffee, delightfully."- bou-
Quoted wines-everything imaginable, and
a good deal of the stuff, as you may
imagine to the last degree indigestible,
except for folks whose internal mechan-
ism was of cast iron and in perfect work
ing condition. -
''And SO, with such spread all set and
in process of being served. this wit. all in
himself, from the gastronomic point OF
view would lean back and just watch
us fellows, friends of his, eat and enjoy
ourselves. He'd be taking little mouth
fuls of his frozen stuf-a bit of frozen
asparagus or frozen consomme. or the
like-while we went on with the feast,
and thered be "a wistful CLEAN in his
eyes as he watched us putting away the
ducks and the terrapfn and the choice
Wines=he wasn't allowed a mOuthful OF
wine, even, I should have said. Then.
when 1t was all over. there were huge
cigars ready for us-he wasn't permitted
to smoke anything whatever-and then
we'd just lie back and blow the heavy.
odorifefous rings of smoke into his face
and enjoy life up to the end of the ham
die.
Now, we used to wonder il this man
wasn't INJECTING needless torture upon
himself, but it really seemed as If he was
not. We used to ask him about that. in
to eating the fine truck himself. he en-
joyed seeing people capable of appre-
ciating 1t and enjoying it eating the stuff
1. always thought. though, tnat his Gu
rious system must have involved an i'm
mense amount Of self-control and char
acter.
Not only did he like to watch people
with fine stomachs eat difficult things,
but he was forever buying choice; arti-
Giles Of food for \them to eat out of
his presence. He had a sort of mania
for buying fancy foods. and the most
expensive in the market, too. Whenl
ever I'd see an oyster wagon backing up
in front of my house with big barrel Of
choice oysters in the tail of the cart for
me I knew that my old friend was in
Washington for the winter That's the
way he'd announce himself. Or. he'd
send up to the house some queer, rich
cheese. very fancy stock, or some bar-le-
due or guava Jelly that had caught his
eye: or a brace of red-headed or canvas
back duck, or an assortment of par
tridges, or an invoice of reedbirds-always
something high-class and tasty and
usually something that belonged in the
domain of epicuredom. His idea was
that this stuff was meant to be eater. by
people of sufficient knowledge to appre-
ciate such articles. and, if he couldn't
eat sthat sort of stuff himself. why. he
wasn't going to be debarred the pleasure
of providing it for others not so well
able to afford 1t as he.
IA quaint man, and a generous one.
and those Of us who had the honor of
his friendship learned a lot from the
sort of restraint that he 'practced through
SO many. many years of his life.''
Shelley's Edinburgh Home.
From the Scotsman.
One of~the two Edinburgh houses as
ISOLATED withz.the name of Shelley is in
process of demolition. " Though there is