IN A RAILWAY RESTAURANT.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 18, Issue 41, 21 May 1907, Page 2

IN A RAILWAY RESTAURANT.

A sallow individual in a fade<i brown overcoat sat down on a stooJ at one of the railway lunch counters the other morning and said to tl.e proprietor : , "Give me a cup of coffee and one oi your expurgated sandwiches." "What kind ?" asked the proprietor "Expurgated," rejoined the other, "One of those vacuum sandwiches for which your establishment is justly celebrated." "I havon't any kind but those under that glass cover." "That's all right. That's the particular variety I want." He helped himself to one of them and lifted oil' the upper lid. "That is what I call a sandwich nil!," he observed, eyeing it critically, yet approvingly. "There is nothing supererogatory about it. It's one. of these hiatus sandwiches; It'js sandwich with an alibi," he added replacing the lid and studying tho outer surface of it intently. "It's an absentee sandwich. It's a sandwich, which to all appearances has failed tut 'arrive. I have seen times when I would have given the world to " i "Stay," interrupted the proprietor "if you don't like that sandwich you needn't cat it. That's all there is about that." I "Who said I didn't like it ? Didn't I call for it. I generally know what I want. For this particular occasion and fife- this specific luncheon I happen to want one of your negative sandwiches, and, like a man, sir, I call for it. Anything wrong about' that?" "You needn't get gay," grumbled the man behind the counter. "Did you order coffee ?" "I did. Give me, if you please, a cup of the best supposititious coffee." "I've only got one kind of coffee/V replied the sulky caterer. "That's tho kind I want. A cup of your universally admired nonexistent col Tee—your famous nullification coffee. Accompanied, if you please, by a small pitcher of your vague, phantasmal, visionary, depopulated cream. I am fasting to-' day." ! And while the man in the faded brown coat munched tho sandwic.lv and sipped the coffee in a slow, ab-sent-minded way, the proprietor, stared at him and breathed hard, and longed to throw him oat of tho window* i