QUEER WAYS IN NEW YORK.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 August 1926, Page 4

QUEER WAYS IN NEW YORK.

(By Richard Starr.) NEW YORK, July 2. You take your seat in a restaurant or cafeteria, and immediately a boy puts a glass of ieo water in front oi' you. Before you have been ‘at your table ten minutes the glass of water is changed for a new one, icy cold. It does not matter whether you order tea or coffee, you get the icy water just the same. A New Yorker takes a drink of ice water before his coli'ee and another after it.

If you stop at a good hotel you have an ice water tap in your bedroom. If your hotel is second class there is an ice water tap on the landing. If you go into a drug store for an icecream soda you get a glass of ice water to sij) while you ure deciding on your order. I have frequently been served with ice-cream soda and a glass of ice water side by side. If you tell a New Yoiker that ice water is practically unknown in England. even in the summer, and that ice is served only on demand, und frequently not then, he will smile politely—but of course he doesn’t believe you.. No charge is made anywhere for ice or ice water, and you can have as much as you like of them. They are the only things I have yet discovered in New York which are cheap, except the car and train fares.

Coffeo is .tho national drink, , and it is good. Tea is something of a newcomer, but is becoming fashionable, especially with the women. It is also good, but you must not speak of it as tea. You ask for orange pekoe. When I ordered my first afternoon tea in New York it came in a very small earthenware pot, with, of course, the usual glass of ice water. It was just enough for one cup—no more. 1 desired this cup to he a good one, so I lifted the lid of the pot, and without looking inside stirred thoughtfully. Then 1 waited a few minutes to nllow the tea leaves to settle, and finally poured out. It was plain water. On investigation I found in the sauce a little bag of tea. Attached to the bag by a string v<is a yellow label bearing tho inscription “Orange Pekoe.” I hastily transferred the bag of tea to the water—which was still quite warm—and stirred even more thoughtfully, hoping for the host. By allowing a good time for infusion and squeezing the bag thoroughly with my spoon, I finally bad a reasonable cup of tea. Fortunately 1 like my tea weak. I learned afterwards that tea is always served this way in. New York restaurants. A New Yorker resents a tea leaf Heating in his cup much ns an Englishman resents a bluebottle in his soup.

I met a starry-eyed Californian girl who had just returned from England, and wo spoke of tea and other nvatteis. “When 1 asked for orange pekoe and cinnamon toast,” she confessed, “they looked at me as if I were nuts. I can’t stand your English tea. It’s like mud; and your coffee is like rain. But I sure do like the English men.” Which is, after all, a kindly criticism.