Show I A FIE TENOR VOICE I How it Sounds in a Cheap New York Restaurant SOME GASTRONOMIC METAPHORS Oysters are Again tho Theme of Startling Start-ling Elocution Summer Time and a Plate of Grass For THE SUNDAY HERALDCopyrighted NE j NEHe was not an umpire um-pire or a referee at a duel He was not going go-ing to count three inn g in-n o j any crisis or give a = signal in any struggle 9nm Ho was simply a restaurant TM a res-taurant waiter and tncrn his ejaculation specifically specifi-cally summoned an oyster stow The circumstances under which the monosyllable mon-osyllable came to represent what it does and to represent nothing else may illustrate illus-trate an interesting evolution in the vernacular ver-nacular of tho language People are in a hurry in this country and restaurant waiters wait-ers have attained a degree of velocity quite beyond any parallel It is obvious to any ono who has ever critically contemplated waiters that they prefer to do everything the easiest way possible If they do not succeed it is because they have imperfectly measured the conditions Put on one oyster stow was the way it began Mr Darwin would have delighted delight-ed to watch the evolution Natural selection selec-tion has proceeded on erratic lines but has surely advanced toward the surviving type 9r Some waiters began saying One oyster stew I Then One stew 1 Then something some-thing that sounded like Wanst and finally One 1 Others like to say and are still saying with thrilling dramatic effect Put on ono A fellow in Nassau street has a way of saying Put on that electrifies elec-trifies the house and all but brings out a burst of applause from the awestruck diners Fhr 1 1 1 I I be us a b F So much for the oyster which just now are in season again and are being consumed with that avidity which New York reserves re-serves for the first two or three weeks of anew a-new oyster season STEAK HE WILL HAYEI When it comes to a perennial dish like steak we find tho waiter in his best mood Sacral as steak goes tho waiters vocabulary vocabu-lary has no vacation as in the case of tho oyster It is Kept in fine training Of course the status of the restaurant here as heelsewhere has a great deal to do with the finish of the waiterial style If the waiter bawls You can put on ono steak for him I it is a very cheap restaurant The same may be said of a place where the timid diner hears Let him have a steakl 1 Simple steak confesses very little as to the restaurants status but the tone in which the single word is uttered often speaks volumes No types can express the remarkable modulations of which a cheap restaurant waiter in good health is capable capa-ble of making use He swoops the whole gamut of emphasis with brilliant and staggering stag-gering abandon Musical types alone may illustrate the manner in which the cheap restaurant tenor handles a phase Thus one order comes out somewhat in this form > r 2 J s = E = J t L kv Steak is a dish that calls perhaps most frequently for a modifying clause Even in cheap restaurants people are particular about steak who can stand variation in almost al-most anything else By all outward signs most patrons like it lean and rarethough medium is a familiar word Occasionally Occasion-ally the waiter roars Sirloin 1 and let the blood follow the knife Abbreviation comes in again with singular effect Thus without preliminary remark the waiter bawls And have it rare I By implication implica-tion the thing wanted is steak A Fulton street waiter with a mellow voice used to say Very lean please I or with beautiful beau-tiful inflection Rare That was all But the invisible beings behind the kitchen partition comprehended the countersign Jf there are two diners there will perhaps be a call for Two leans or tho invisible party may hear a warning to Have both of them rare p i 1 L L h A D N vET Rim The student restaurant philosophy will not be long in discovering that soup affords better scope for the waiters genius Veg may mean vegetable soup tomato soup may be cut down to simple tomato and another variety may sound very picturesque pic-turesque as chicken but soup has limitations limi-tations Even coffee heaves a greater scope For a simple order we shall hear draw one But when you ask for the omission of milk then it may be Draw one on the dark I If you have ordered coffee and butter cakes the waiter may go to the dumb waiter and shriek Three up The three will be butter cakes He draws the coffee himself or adds t her Draw ono if that function is to be pe he-r formed by somebody else Beans may be secured by a call for One on the Bostons If the same dish is to be accompanied by pork the order will probably be pork and andPuddings Puddings being served with one or two kinds of sauce the order requires a modify ing clause Plum pudding with only the sugar sauce would be Plum hard With both kinds of sauce it comes as Plum bo I A scientific rarebitbegging the readers pardon for the startling transition of course requires a little ale Tho waiter awater a little glass of ale to the dumbwaiter dumb-waiter and starts the liquid on its down I c r ward flight with the simple suggestion You know 1I M SUMMER TIME AND A PLATE OF GRASSu In the realm of metaphor the waiter is sometimes more vigorous than appetizing When he yells Three door mats I no sensitive itive diner could be expected to meet with any glee the three buckwheat cakes that afterward make their appearance Four cables would mean four sausages Naturally Natur-ally mince pie is a shining mark To bring it forth in all the glory of a white sugar mantle the waiter appeals for Dyspepsia in a snow storm Hash would be designated nated simply as Mystery for one In the hot season the newcomer is profoundly puzzled at an order for Summer time and a plate of grass The order is given with a musical turn like this I yf > r r r tJ 1 r r r r I t Ou Co pcL fyrytl j Summer time proves to be crackers I and milk The grass is asparagus A bowl of milk without crackers or where the waiter supplies himself with crackers is attained by a request to See me on the bow The waiter is often fantastic without with-out being very funny as when he says Boil two door knobs Of course he means eggs He means eggs also when he says Fry two When he orders Two bullets he means ash balls ° I I PRY HERE e J y I THE CASHIER These hints suggesting in a most fragmentary frag-mentary way the complications of a vast and brilliant vocabulary are confided to what wo may call the solo lines But imagine im-agine a combination of these phrases when the piping tenor with his Put on one I is heard at the same moment as the sonorous baritone with his Have it rare the bass with his Three door mats bringing in a fine background of musical color To people peo-ple who have not experienced the thing before be-fore the choral effect is naturally disquieting disquiet-ing The novice finds it difficult to preserv an easy gastronomic equilibrium in the midst of some of these Wagnerian crescendos crescen-dos In time a man who may bo doomed t o a cheap restaurant gets used to these things After awhile he even ceases to wonder how the powers that be behind the partition o r under the dumb waiter ever manages ti 0 extricate in this mass of sound one order from another Tho other day having these paragraph s in mind I determined to refresh my recollection recol-lection by visiting a typical cheap downtown down-town restaurant I picked out a basemen that looked promising Here I thought we shall have something racy and characteristic charac-teristic with waiters that look like brigands brig-ands music that will raise tile hair a sin isterlooking cashier and an odor of vegetable vegeta-ble soup I tripped down the steps and entered en-tered Bo it was one of those few place in New York where the waiters are prett girls and the orders were all whispere through a vaguely defined partition VICTOR SIMS |