Not to be outdone, however, I got my place in the sun by cleverly tripping my rival as he passed me, so that he fell into the fountain arrangement, while I sat down in the seat pulled out for him by the head waiter. And, once I was in, there was nothing for them to do but let me stay. After I had been there a few minutes a waiter came and put on a fresh table cloth. Five minutes later another man placed a knife and spoon at my plate. Later in the evening a boy with a basket of rolls wandered by and deposited one on my table with a pair of pincers. Personally, I was rather glad that it was working out this way, for it would make my story all the better, but I might have really been in a hurry for my dinner. It wasn't long, as the crow flies, before one of the third assistant waiters unloosened enough to drop round and see if there was anything else I wanted besides one roll and a knife and spoon. I looked over the menu as if I were in a pretty captious mood, and then, with the air of an epicure who has tasted to the dregs all the condiments of Arabia and whose jaded palate refuses to thrill any longer, I ordered "roast beef." It was billed as "90 (.80)," which didn't strike me as being very steep, considering the overhead expense there must be in keeping little knots of waiters and 'bus-boys standing round doing nothing in the further corner of the room. The waiter wasn't very enthusiastic over my order, and something saved me from asking him if they threw in "a side" of mashed potatoes with the meat. He seemed to expect something more, even after I had ordered potatoes, so I suggested an artichoke. That cheered him up more than anything I had done that evening, and he really got quite fratty and said: "A little salad, sir?" Again I imitated a man who has had more experience with salads than any other three men put together and who has found them a miserable sham. [Illustration: "The waiter wasn't very enthusiastic over my order."] "No; that will be all for now," I said, and turned wearily away. I wanted to tell him that I had a dinner coat at home that looked enough sight better than his, but there is no use in making a scene when it can be avoided. During the next twenty minutes the orchestra played once and I ate my roll. Then the roast beef came. On a silver platter, with a silver cover, it was placed before me under the best possible scenic conditions. But the thing that met my gaze when the cover was lifted might just as well have been the same property piece of roast beef that was keeping company with a dab of mashed potato in the Bay State Lunch. It had a trifle more fat, was just a shade pinker, and perhaps a micrometer could have detected a bit more bulk; but, so far as I was concerned or so far as the calories were concerned, it was the same. I won't say that it was the same as the Roast Beef Special of the Bowery Restaurant, because the service in the Bowery Restaurant was infinitely better.