“Printing, get-up, prices, quite like Tokay’s! We will decide quickly, lest the thing prove an illusion and vanish as we near it, Cheshire-cat fashion. Johnson, we will have a pot of tea for two, with cream, and half—no, a dozen lettuce and chicken sandwiches, served out here. Also you may get ginger ale and cheese sandwiches for Benson and yourself,” for Mrs. Parks owed much of her social success, as well as happiness in life, to the fact that she recognized the equal primal necessities of all classes, and she argued that if Mrs. Van Kleek and herself, seated at ease in the carriage, were thirsty beyond endurance, Benson and Johnson on the box must be doubly so. In due course the man returned, and turning up the flap seat in front of the ladies, placed the tray, with its dainty array, upon it. “Damask napkins, instead of paper!” gasped Mrs. Van Kleek. “Real cream!” said Mrs. Parks, “and domino sugar!” “English breakfast tea, smell the aroma! a pot with an inside strainer, and porcelain cups and saucers!” continued Mrs. Van Kleek, proceeding to pour the tea, after which the remarks of the two women turned into a veritable patter song of praise, punctuated by sipping and munching. “Really, this is most extraordinary! I wish I could tell of what those plates remind me; I seem to have seen the pattern before. Ferns, and no two bits quite alike,—it’s not at all like the usual commercial china,” said Mrs. Van Kleek, sinking comfortably back among the cushions, after finishing two cups of tea, together with five of the delicate sandwiches, and still looking meditatively at the sixth, murmuring, “Tokay could not outdo this, they are of the best—and the tea—simply unique!” “Johnson,” called Mrs. Parks, for the two men were eagerly regaling themselves at a respectful distance, “take back the tray and see if they can change this bill—and Johnson, was there a waiter or any one there who should have a tip?” “I should jedge, mum, there was one elderish party who should; she was rather snappy, mum, and charged me not to break the ware; but the others are gentlefolks, mum, quite through, and said as of course I’d be careful, which of a certain I would, mum, and me bein’ in service, mum, where I’d always known real china from Liverpool, and plate from pewter, which they ’ad the eye to see, mum,” and Johnson walked off, bearing the tray as carefully as if it held family plate.