It's The Dining-Room; It's In That Resplendent Hall That We've Got To Give Ourselves A Social Boom Or Be Content To Fold Our Hands And Fade Away Forever."

"Which I don't want to do yet," said Jone, "so speak out your trouble."

[Illustration: "Ask the waiter what the French words mean"]

"The trouble this time is you," said I, "and your awful meekness. I never did see anybody anywhere as meek as you are in that dining-room. A half-drowned fly put into the sun to dry would be overbearing and supercilious compared to you. When you sit down at one of those tables you look as if you was afraid of hurting the chair, and when the waiter gives you the bill of fare you ask him what the French words mean, and then he looks down on you as if he was a superior Jove contemplating a hop-toad, and he tells you that this one means beef and the other means potatoes, and brings you the things that are easiest to get. And you look as if you was thankful from the bottom of your heart that he is good enough to give you anything at all. All the airs I put on are no good while you are so extra humble. I tell him I don't want this French thing - when I don't know what it is - and he must bring me some of the other - which I never heard of - and when it comes I eat it, no matter what it turns out to be, and try to look as if I was used to it, but generally had it better cooked.

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