Tuxedo, drew him apart, inserted a two-dollar bill, and closed him up
again.

"'Frankoyse,' says I, 'I have a pal here for dinner that's been
subsisting for years on cereals and short stogies. You see the chef
and order a dinner for us such as you serve to Dave Francis and the
general passenger agent of the Iron Mountain when they eat here.
We've got more than Bernhardt's tent full of money; and we want the
nose-bags crammed with all the Chief Deveries _de cuisine_. Object
is no expense. Now, show us.'

"At six o'clock me and Solly sat down to dinner. Spread! There's
nothing been seen like it since the Cambon snack [29]. It was all served
at once. The chef called it _dinnay a la poker_. It's a famous thing
among the gormands of the West. The dinner comes in threes of a kind.
There was guinea-fowls, guinea-pigs, and Guinness's stout; roast veal,
mock turtle soup, and chicken pate; shad-roe, caviar, and tapioca;
canvas-back duck, canvas-back ham, and cotton-tail rabbit; Philadelphia
capon, fried snails, and sloe-gin--and so on, in threes. The idea was
that you eat nearly all you can of them, and then the waiter takes away
the discard and gives you pears to fill on.

[FOOTNOTE 29: Cambon snack--This term eludes definitive
explanation. It might refer to the brothers Paul
and Jules Cambon. Paul was the French ambassador
to Great Britain from 1898 to 1920; in 1904 he
negotiated the Entente Cordiale between France and
Britain that was the basis for their alliance in
World War I. Jules was the French ambassador to
the U.S. from 1897 to 1902 and was the French
ambassador to Germany at the outbreak of World
War I.]

"I was sure Solly would be tickled to death with these hands, after
the bobtail flushes he'd been eating on the ranch; and I was a little
anxious that he should, for I didn't remember his having honoured my
efforts with a smile since we left Atascosa City.

"We were in the main dining-room, and there was a fine-dressed crowd
there, all talking loud and enjoyable about the two St. Louis topics,
the water supply and the colour line. They mix the two subjects so
fast that strangers often think they are discussing water-colours; and
that has given the old town something of a rep as an art centre. And
over in the corner was a fine brass band pl