Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1900 — SOME CURIOUS DINERS. [ARTICLE]

SOME CURIOUS DINERS.

B>Sgar on Hot Beans and Thick Balt Paste for Soup. "Talk about queer fish of the human School, this la the place to see them,” remarked the head waiter of a big downtown eating house. The nearest waitress smiled in approving affirmation, as Is the duty of all well-conduct-ed waitresses when their immediate boss makes an assertion. “Well,” said the bright, young bunch of vivacity who serves the first table, “I thought I had seen the limit when a man put sugar on hot beans, but to-day a man ‘wolfed’ because there was no olive oil handy to put on an order of meat pie.” The young lady who plays the cash register volunteered the Information that a man with the salt habit was the limit. He just couldn’t get enough ■alt, try as he might. When his order of soup was before him he would calmly unscrew the tops from all the salt cellars on the table and deposit their contents in his soup, making it into a thick salt paste. This he would spread upon bread and consume with a keen relish. This man always sat at the same table with the customer who ate the green tops of young onions and left the white bulbs untouched. The demure girl with a fathom of stiver rope about her wrists observed that when she saw a man pour mayonnaise dressing over apple pie she almost dropped a tray full (not a poker term) of orders for star boarders. “These freaks are, of course, all peculiar,” Said the head waitress, “but the climax is capped by a woman with an Insatiable appetite. She was quite a steady customer and always ate everything on the bill of fare, and, like the guests of Donovan’s party, ’looked on the back to see If any more was there.’ This woman, a few days ago, cleaned up in great style. She excelled herself and ate more than three average men. When she was given her check she deliberately walked over to another table, sat down and began going through the bill of fare again. She had just finished her soup when I noticed her game. I went over to her and said: ‘Lady, we can stand for almost anything but this. You have eaten one large dinner already.’ She was as cool as a cucumber, and replied: “ ‘Ah, yes, it had quite escaped me.’ “ ‘Your memory must be awful short,’ says I. " 1 don’t care to be Insulted by a waitress,’ says she, ‘and 1 will never come Into your place again.’ “ ‘Keep out,’ says I, ‘and give the boss a chance to make a little money; he has been losing long enough on you.’ “So out she went with her nose in the air, pretending to be dreadfully Insulted. I told the boss about It and he said he hoped she would never come back, for he wants to buy the missus some new clothes. But the next day we forgot to tell the cook that the woman was not coming back, and so there wae a siirplus of veal that day.” All of which accounts for the fact, possibly, that the boarders had chicken croquettes to infinity the following day.