e rosy grill at the
foot of the stairs. In one of the little crowded stalls a man sat with a
glass of milk. It was the first time we had been in that chop house for
several years ... it doesn't seem the same. As Mr. Wordsworth said, it
is not now as it hath been of yore. But still,

The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her foster-child, her Inn-mate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known.

It's a queer thing that all these imitation beers taste to us exactly as
real beer did the first time we tasted it (we were seven years old) and
shuddered. "Two glasses of cider," we said to the comely serving maid.
Alas

That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive.

There is a nice point of etiquette involved in lunching in a crowded
chop house. Does the fact of having bought and eaten a moderate meal
entitle one to sit with one's companion for a placid talk and smoke
afterward? Or is one compelled to relinquish the table as soon as one is
finished, to make place for later comers? These last are standing
menacingly near by, gazing bitterly upon us as we look over the card and
debate the desirability of having some tapioca pudding. But our
presiding Juno has already settled the matter, and made courtesy a
matter of necessity. "These gentlemen will be through in a moment," she
says to the new candidates. Our companion, the amiable G---- W----, was
just then telling us of a brand of synthetic whiskey now being
distilled by a famous tavern of the underworld. The superlative charm of
this beverage seems to be the extreme rigidity it imparts to the
persevering communicant. "What does it taste like?" we asked. "Rather
like gnawing furniture," said G---- W----. "It's like a long, healthy
draught of shellac. It seems to me that it would be less trouble if you
offered the barkeep fifty cents to hit you over the head with a hammer.
The general effect would be about the same, and you wouldn't feel nearly
so bad in the morning."

A windy day, and perishing chill, we thought as we strolled through the
gloomy caverns and crypts underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Those twisted
vistas seen through the archways give an impression of wrecked Louvain.
A great bonfire was burning in the middle of the street. Under the Pearl
Street elevated the sunlight drifted through the girders in a lively
chequer, patterning piles of gray-black snow with a criss-cross of
brightness. We had wanted to show our visitor Franklin Square, whic