traveler is constantly assured--and yet in an American inn one can
never do as one likes. A terrific gong sounds early in the
morning, breaking one's sweet slumbers; and then a second gong,
sounding some thirty minutes later, makes you understand that you
must proceed to breakfast whether you be dressed or no. You
certainly can go on with your toilet, and obtain your meal after
half an hour's delay. Nobody actually scolds you for so doing, but
the breakfast is, as they say in this country, "through." You sit
down alone, and the attendant stands immediately over you.
Probably there are two so standing. They fill your cup the instant
it is empty. They tender you fresh food before that which has
disappeared from your plate has been swallowed. They begrudge you
no amount that you can eat or drink; but they begrudge you a single
moment that you sit there neither eating nor drinking. This is
your fate if you're too late; and therefore, as a rule, you are not
late. In that case, you form one of a long row of eaters who
proceed through their work with a solid energy that is past all
praise. It is wrong to say that Americans will not talk at their
meals. I never met but few who would not talk to me, at any rate
till I got to the far West; but I have rarely found that they would
address me first. Then the dinner comes early--at least it always
does so in New England--and the ceremony is much of the same kind.
You came there to eat, and the food is pressed upon you ad nauseam.
But, as far as one can see, there is no drinking. In these days, I
am quite aware that drinking has become improper, even in England.
We are apt, at home, to speak of wine as a thing tabooed, wondering
how our fathers lived and swilled. I believe that, as a fact, we
drink as much as they did; but, nevertheless, that is our theory.
I confess, however, that I like wine. It is very wicked, but it
seems to me that my dinner goes down better with a glass of sherry