The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-23
chef whom he employed especially for
TELEPHoNEs-BELL 25i, PEOPLES 47

chef whom he employed especially for fixing up his frozen foods.
 Hot stuff of any sort was worse than poison to him. Therefore, with praiseworthy philosophy, this clever and accomplished man resigned him. self to the system of getting his gas- tronomic fun by proxy.
 That Is to say, he'd enjoy watching other folks eat He'd provide the food As a young man I enjoyed some rare old feasts at that mans house. l was just one of the good eaters, fitted with a perfect stomach, whom he had on the list.
 He'd find out tbe stuff that or any of the others liked most and then he'd have us up to his house to partake of that stuff. There'd be terrapin, per- fectly cooked game of all kinds, richly fixed vegetables, rare wines, ornate and rich pastries, phenomenally fine coffee-everything imaginable and good deal of the stuff, to the last de- gree, indigestible, except for folks whose internal mechanism was of cast iron and In perfect working condition
 And so, with such a spread all set and in process of being served, this bon vii want, all in himself, from the gastronomic
 
 watch us fellows, friends of his, eat and enjoy ourselves. He'd be taking little mouthfuls of his frozen stuff-a bit of frozen soup or frozen asparagus or the Eke-while he went on with the feast, and thered DC a wistful gleam in his eye as he watched us putting away the ducks and the terrapin and the choice wines he wasn't allowed even a mouthful of wine himself!
 
 huge black cigars for us-he himself wasn't permitted to smoke anythng-and then we'd just lie back and blow the heavy odoriferous rings of rich Vuelta Abajo smoke into his face and enjoy life up to the end of the haft
 We used to wonder If this man wasn't infiicting needless torture upon himself, but it really seemed as if he was not. We used to ask him about that in fact, and he invariably replied that next to eating the fine truck himself he enjoyed seeing other people capable of appreciating 1t and enjoying consuming the stuff. I al- ways thought, though, that his curious system must have involved an immense amount of self control and character.
 "He not only liked to watch folks with fine stomachs eat difficult things, but he was forever buying choice ar ticles of food for them to eat away from his presence. He had a sort of mania for buying fancy foods, and tn e most expensive foods In the market. too.
 "Whenever 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 ole friend was in the midst of one of his food buying moods. Or he'd send up to the house some queer, rich ch eese, very fancy stock or some Bar-le-duc or guava jelly that had caught his eye: or a brace of superior duck, or an as- sortment of quail, or an invoice of reed birds-always something high grade and tasty, and usually something that belonged to the domain of epicuredom.
 His idea was that this stuff wa meant to be eaten by persons of suf ficfent knowledge to appreciate such articles, and if he couldn't eat the stuff himself, why, he wasn't going to be debarred the pleasure of providing | for others not so well able to afford it as he himself was.
 "A quaint man this. and a generous one. and those of us who had the honor of his friendship learned lot from the sort of restraint that he practiced throughout many years of his long life"