t threatened to be spoiled. A passenger came
along, demanding in an important voice, "Where are these frogs?" He was
a prominent New York after-dinner speaker, they whispered me, and
out for a holiday in his private car. Reaching us and walking to the
Virginian, he said cheerily, "How much do you want for your frogs, my
friend?"

"You got a friend hyeh?" said the Virginian. "That's good, for yu'
need care taken of yu'." And the prominent after-dinner speaker did not
further discommode us.

"That's worth my trip," whispered a New York passenger to me.

"Yes, it was a case of revenge," resumed the Virginian, "and disease.
There was a man named Saynt Augustine got run out of Domingo, which is
a Dago island. He come to Philadelphia, an' he was dead broke. But Saynt
Augustine was a live man, an' he saw Philadelphia was full o' Quakers
that dressed plain an' eat humdrum. So he started cookin' Domingo
way for 'em, an' they caught right ahold. Terrapin, he gave 'em,
an' croakeets, an' he'd use forty chickens to make a broth he called
consommay. An' he got rich, and Philadelphia got well known, an'
Delmonico in New York he got jealous. He was the cook that had the
say-so in New York."

"Was Delmonico one of them I-talians?" inquired a fascinated mutineer.

"I don't know. But he acted like one. Lorenzo was his front name. He
aimed to cut--"

"Domingo's throat?" breathed the enthusiast.

"Aimed to cut away the trade from Saynt Augustine an' put Philadelphia
back where he thought she belonged. Frawgs was the fashionable rage
then. These foreign cooks set the fashion in eatin', same as foreign
dressmakers do women's clothes. Both cities was catchin' and swallowin'
all the frawgs Tulare could throw at 'em. So he--"

"Lorenzo?" said the enthusiast.

"Yes, Lorenzo Delmonico. He bid a dollar a tank higher. An' Saynt
Augustine raised him fifty cents. An' Lorenzo raised him a dollar
An' Saynt Augustine shoved her up three. Lorenzo he didn't expect
Philadelphia would go that high, and he got hot in the collar, an' flew
round his kitchen in New York, an' claimed he'd twist Saynt Augustine's
Domingo tail for him and crack his ossified system. Lorenzo raised his
language to a high temperature, they say. An' then quite sudden off
he starts for Tulare. He buys tickets over the Santa Fe, and he goes
a-fannin' and a-foggin'. But, gentlemen, hush! The very same day Saynt
Augustine he tears out of Philadelphia. He travelled by the way o'