My task now was to
see that the Grill was kept to the high level of its opening, both as
a social ganglion, if one may use the term, and as a place to which
the public would ever turn for food that mattered. For my first
luncheon the raccoons had prepared, under my direction, a
steak-and-kidney pie, in addition to which I offered a thick soup and
a pudding of high nutritive value.
To my pleased astonishment the crowd at midday was quite all that my
staff could serve, several of the Hobbs brood being at school, and the
luncheon was received with every sign of approval by the business
persons who sat to it. Not only were there drapers, chemists, and
shop-assistants, but solicitors and barristers, bankers and estate
agents, and all quite eager with their praise of my fare. To each of
these I explained that I should give them but few things, but that
these would be food in the finest sense of the word, adding that the
fault of the American school lay in attempting a too-great profusion
of dishes, none of which in consequence could be raised to its highest
power.
So sound was my theory and so nicely did my simple-dished luncheon
demonstrate it that I was engaged on the spot to provide the
bi-monthly banquet of the Chamber of Commerce, the president of which
rather seriously proposed that it now be made a monthly affair, since
they would no longer be at the mercy of a hotel caterer whose ambition
ran inversely to his skill.
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