New Britain herald., 1927-01-08
THE OBSER YER Makes Random Observations
 On the City and Its People

get just who gave the banquet ant why 1t was given but we know i was a real banquet because the. asked us today to buy one of the fashlight pictures that has us look. ing like fledgling eagle surprised ir the nest.
 We arrived and shook hands witt several acquaintances whom we rec. ognized even in their white ties. We obtained seat and after a some. what ragged rendition of America during which we eyed the forks and chose the one we would start the battle with, we sat down. Then we stood up again and unfolded the coat tails from under us. These rented suits crease so.
 We had oysters on the half shell and we ate them. Not that we like them but 1t seemed the thing to do Everybody ate them. We estimated that about per cent of the attend ance relished them. We had con- somme and we slipped that. We have read somewhere that 1t is perfectly proper to drink consomme If 1t is in the double handled cups. They served double handled cups. Nobody drank theirs. We estimated that if one brave soul had drunk his con- somme 1t would be narrated over $50 breakfast tables the next day. Not that it isn't perfectly proper but it just Is that nobody quite believes Emily Post.
 We had salad comprised of a lot of mayonnaise and lettuce. Out of $50 salads, 14 ate their lettuce 12 of the 14 showed signs of 1t on their coal lapels afterwards. We had roast duck. Roast wild duck. The portion we had must have been engrossed in gulping down very old and revered herring just as the shot reached him. We tasted the old and revered herring but we missed out on the duck. The duck that We portioned was all herring. Herring and Number 8. Hercules Smokeless long range cartridge. Two filings and a front fang crunched hungrily on the Number smokeless shot.
 We had ice cream which had waited a long time for this great moment. It had evidently once given up hoping and had dissolved into disappointed tears. We won- dered whether Emily Post would approve of drinking ex-ice cream. We slipped this also. The rented dress suit can prove that statement.
 We had demi-tasse. It reminded us of the old joke "Oh, I love demi- tasse. love to dip it in my coffee." We used sugar in ours as we invari- ably do. We received several black looks at the idea of dropping sugar in demi-tasee. Just to show the rest that we knew what we were doing we dropped in another lump. It approached the saccharine stages before we had finished. We plunged into cigar and found that some body had economized in the choos- ing of the cigars. We tried a ci- garette and sat down to listen. Dots to show time passing.
 One hour and thirty-eight minutes later the roar of the flashlight woke us up. We plodded out and found our overcoat and somebody's hat. All that night and the next day we tasted herring. Herring and Her. cules smokeless Number 8 shot. The dress suit cost us s4.5O not count ing the ice cream on the left lapel. That was fifty cents extra. Great idea, these banquets.
 The world powers are having a lot of fun just now with China and Nicaragua. They have no right to intervene but have a duty to do 1t. so whenever a new war lord collects a full squad of men or a bolshevik agitator shoots off string of fire- crackers an armed force is sent to protect the lives of European and Americans in the country. China and Nicaragua must be choked with little bands of soldiers, sailors and marines engaged in maintaining or der and shooting craps. We don't see how there is any room left for the natives to move about.
 But suppose the same thing were to be done to us. Imagine, for a
  to foreign intervention as are the