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Without the "Bread"—What of the Man?
Without the Milk—What of the Baby?
Without the "Cocktail"—What of the Dinner?
For never let it be supposed that food
alone was ever the whole evening s enter
tainment.
Garnish without talk the greyest caviare
that once sought silver sanctuary in
Crimean waters, or the rarest tongue that
ever trembled in an ortalan s throat.
Garnish these greatest of Nature's deli
cacies with dullness, and mental night will
fall upon the "Entree" and sleep woo
gently the partaker of sweeter things. It
is King Cocktail who stands sentinel before
the entrance to "Old Rip's" "Sleepy Hol
low" and it is he who many a time and oft
decorates a quite indifferent "chef."
It is this genial monarch, too, who trans
forms the timid lover into a persistent
"Romeo," the bashful virgin into a Victor
ian spinster eager for adventure, and
places into the hands of veteran .Casa-
novas posies of memory bound with the
faded triumphs of yester year.
With King Cocktail as pre-meal host,
strangers become friends, platitudes—epi
grams, and the disappointed borrowers,
grateful enemies.