“I want you to order this dinner,” said he, handing over to Thorpe the card which an impossibly correct waiter presented him. “And I want it a good one. I want you to begin at the beginning and skip nothing. Pretend you are ordering just the dinner you would like to offer your sister,” he suggested on a sudden inspiration. “I assure you I'll try to be just as critical and exigent as she would be.”
“There are no oysters and clams now,” said he, “so we'll pass right on to the soup. It seems to me a desecration to pretend to replace them. We'll have a bisque,” he told the waiter, “rich and creamy. Then planked whitefish, and have them just a light crisp, brown. You can bring some celery, too, if you have it fresh and good. And for entree tell your cook to make some macaroni au gratin, but the inside must be soft and very creamy, and the outside very crisp. I know it's a queer dish for a formal dinner like ours,” he addressed Wallace with a little laugh, “but it's very, very good. We'll have roast beef, rare and juicy;--if you bring it any way but a cooked red, I'll send it back;--and potatoes roasted with the meat and brown gravy. Then the breast of chicken with the salad, in the French fashion. And I'll make the dressing. We'll have an ice and some fruit for dessert. Black coffee.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the waiter, his pencil poised. “And the wines?”
“A rich red Burgundy,” he decided, “for all the dinner. If your cellar contains a very good smooth Beaune, we'll have that.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the waiter, and departed.
Thorpe sat and gazed moodily into the wood fire, Wallace respected his silence. It was yet too early for the fashionable world, so the two friends had the place to themselves. Gradually the twilight fell; strange shadows leaped and died on the wall. A boy dressed all in white turned on the lights. By and by the waiter announced that their repast awaited them.
Thorpe ate, his eyes half closed, in somnolent satisfaction. Occasionally he smiled contentedly across at Wallace, who smiled in response. After the coffee he had the waiter bring cigars. They went back between the tables to a little upholstered smoking room, where they sank into the depths of leather chairs, and blew the gray clouds of smoke towards the ceiling. About nine o'clock Thorpe spoke the first word.