Well, we went around different places, and finally we went to a hotel
about a thousand times bigger than the hotel at Havaner. The office had
gilt all over it and marble pillars and a dome of blue and red glass. It
must have cost millions. When we went into the dining room John
Armstrong looked shamed a little like a boy standin' up to recite. And
we sat down at a table. Everybody said Colonel to Colonel Lambkin, and
seemed to know him and was awful polite to him; and the waiters laughed
at Mitch and me. And one of 'em stood by John and says: "Baked fish,
corn beef and cabbage, brisket of beef, pork tenderloin, roast goose and
turkey and cranberry sauce." John looked stunned like, and as if he
couldn't remember what the waiter said, and the waiter stood there
waitin' for John to speak, and finally John says, "Wal, bring me
whatever's the handiest for you."
My pa broke into the biggest laugh I ever heard him and turned to the
Colonel and said: "That story you told me keeps goin' through my mind."
And the Colonel laughed and said, "Ain't that a good one?" By this time
the waiter had repeated to John what they had and John said, "Wal, bring
me the pork tenderloin," and so the rest of us had our orders in and
pretty soon we had dinner and went out.
They took us to a ball game. You had to pay to get in. Nobody could look
over or look through the fence. It was all different from what it was at
home. And there was a pitcher there who looked like the pictures of
Edgar Allan Poe, and he could throw a curve clear around the batter
right into the catcher's hand. I saw him. And the score was three to
nothin,' not 18 to 25 as I had seen it at home.
And in the evening there was a torchlight procession for Cleveland, and
bands, and banners, and big pictures of Cleveland. "Look at him," said
John, "can't you see he wears a 18 collar?"
"Yes," says pa, "but no 6-7/8 hat."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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