Evening star., 1924-04-27
Heard and Seen

| Comedy today he would make one of
the circles of his hell restaurant.
wherein hungry sinners would be
| forced to eat until eternity"
With this remark a man viewed his
auditor, as they stood on PennsyI-
vania avenue, paused to let it sink
| in, and then resumed his converse
! tion.
"Yessir," he continued, 'I have the
greatest sympathy for the man forced
to eat in a restaurant. You see, I
went through it myself. know
| Don't get me wrong. I'm not pan
ming the restaurants. They do the
best they can.
For. an occasional breakfast. a
regular lunch or a meal before or
after the theater. the restaurant full
| fills all demands. 1t is the bird con-
demned to eat his every meal at them
for whom my sympathetic heart bleeds
THE lions roar and get their meat
| from God, according to the psalm, but
thousands of people in a great city
are not so fortunate. They have to
| go to restaurants.
Eating becomes. for these poor
souls, merely stoking of the human
furnace. Most of them realize it. too
Look at the regulars in any restau-
rant. They are a downcast looking
lot, with the weight of the world on
| their shoulders and the heaviness of
pancakes and sausage in their in
teriors.
| Their ears are attuned to the cry
Of stack O. wheat Ham an and cup
| O. light Their eyes know the ap-
proach of the waitress with the gold
tooth and their lips the taste of coffee
that is too strong for any place ex-
| cept the trenches.
These wights eat in 4 perpetual
| din of dishes, a hurrying to and fro
of men and yet more men. If CON
| tentment is a continual feast, as
| some one said, they must be hungry
| all the time.
| "Appetite-j juice has a hard time
| flowing in a restaurant. The sensitive
| gastric juice finds itself next an old
| gray-whiSkered party who eats soup
| like Il fire engine and not far from
| the man who thinks coffee is mu-
| Sical instrument
| Under these circumstances the so
| called feast of reason and flow OF
| soul refuses either to feast or to flow.
| mo matter what time of day one
goes into a restaurant, here comes n
| Aframerican with a mop. 1t would
seem as if cleanliness is the main
| endeavor of a restaurant. For this
they are to be commended, of course
but it is unfortunate that they have
to have this fervor at exactly the
time one comes in.
mo sooner do you get your cup of
coffee and chunk of cake than down
the aisle sidles the man with the mop
| or long-handled broom. 1t is always
one or the other.
He sprinkles sawdust-this is to
give the mop something TO chase
then proceeds to make the mop func-
ton. Every grain of sawdust is
swept up.
Several elusive fragments hide be
tween your feet. That is where all
the trouble comes in. The whole re-
mainder of the room is open for
sweeping, but no place is so desirable
as the few tiles under the only Gus
toners feet.
so the mop gives your right
trouser leg a side-swipe, then barks
both shoes, taking off that shine for
which you have just paid more than
It is worth, caresses the other trouser
leg, whacks up dust into your eyes,
into the coffee and all over the cake.
~
From the naughty lady behind the
cash register 20 the familiar counter
man every restaurant is like every
other restaurant. No matter which
one you drop into. there is the same
sign, If you are pleased, tell others;
If you are not, tell u.s. Only don't
act on the latter tip--take tip from
me.
"Has a restaurant no redeeming
feature, then? Yes, 1t has. 1t does
what ii sets out to do and in the ma
jority of cases does it well. Its faults
are mostly those of humanity packed
close together.
Sometimes, now and then, there is
| memory of q restaurant that glori-
fies the subject. Maybe it was Il
friendship made and cemented at d
white topped table. Maybe 1t was
the smiling face of the eternal fem
inine, some friendly waitress, ex
tending to us a bit of the vision Of
CHARLES E. TRAcEWELL