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Show ECONOMY IN HIGH LIFE. People of Small Means Who Manage to Keep Up Appearances. The presiding genius of one of tb.6 most expensive dining rooms on the avenue vas discussing his patrons with a friend. "I have patrons here," said he, "who never get anything but a cup of coffee or a salad at most, but then you see they are never seen anywhere else, except, perhaps, to order the same thing in some place where the prices even top ours. Yet such people aro persons of small means, whose social prestige depends largely upon their being be-ing seen frequently at such places and such only. It is a factor in their financial finan-cial credit as well. "They can't, of course, live on coffee and rolls, but the way they manage Is this: They feed themselves in privato devour frankfurters and rye bread behind locked doors expensive rooms, mind you; but to the world they live in style, and they keep a stiff upper lip even If no dinner has passed it in days. "Why, I know a couple who dress in the perfection of style, live in the '50s just off the avenue, and are often seen here usually for the stereotyped coffee cof-fee and rolls, once in a great while a salad or chop. I happen to know that woman gets her breakfast and her husband's hus-band's over a 25-cent gas stove, and what they don't get here or in some similar place they eat in that fashion in their rooms. Of course they dine out a great deal; they go everywhere. "The man holds a rather prominent though poorly paid position; the wife is a general favorite; they dress perfectly per-fectly (to do which, of course, rigid economy must be practiced somewhere), some-where), and they are seen at all the 'small and selects.' None of their friends, of course, are acquainted with these domestic details, and, indeed, they came to my knowledge in the most unexpected way." New York Times. |