The restaurant consisted of a long and queerly shaped room. It had originally been divided into two apartments, but when the house had passed into the present management the partition had been torn down, and two long and narrow tables marked the line where the division had been. The walls were dingy and unpapered. Where the plaster was of an unusual degree of smokiness, several cheap chromos, in cheaper frames, had been hung, like brilliant patches laid upon a dingy background. Above the chromos lingered small bunches of evergreen--faded and dried remnants of the last holiday season--and from the tarnished and fly-specked chandelier hung a withered spray of mistletoe. The room was crowded. There was not so much as a vacant seat at the tables. The hum of voices passed through the doors and into the rumble of the street without. In a far corner a lady in a blouse of geranium pink was engaged in catching reckless flies for the sustenance of the chameleon upon her breast; nearer at hand a gentleman was polishing his plate and knife with his napkin. It was warm and oppressive, and the voices sounded shrilly through the glare. The girl whom they had called "Miss Musin" looked up with absent-minded abruptness. "I had as soon wear wooden shoes as eat with a pewter fork!" she remarked, irritably. Mr. Nevins shook his flaxen head and laid down his spoon. "So long as it remains a question of forks," he observed, "let us give thanks. Who knows when it may become one of food?" Then he sighed. "If it is only a sacrifice of decency, I'm equal to it, but I refuse to live without food." "The audacity of youth!" commented Mr. Sellars, the philosopher. "I said the same at your age. But for taking the conceit out of one, commend me to experience." "From a profound study of the subject," broke in Mr. Paul, grimly, "I have been able to calculate to a nicety that each one of these potatoes, taken internally, lessens an hour of one's existence. As a method of self-destruction"--and he proceeded to help himself--"there is none more efficacious than an exclusive diet of Gotham potatoes. Allow me to pass them." He looked at Miss Musin, but Mr. Nevins rose to the occasion. "After such an analysis, my gallantry forbids," and he intercepted the dish. The girl glanced up at him. "Extinction long drawn out is boring," she said. "And is food the only factor of human life? It may be the most important, I admit, but important things should not always be talked of." "I declare it quite staggers me," interrupted a cheerful individual, who was Mr. Morris, "to think of the number of things that should not be talked of--some amazingly interesting things, too! Do you know, sometimes I wonder if social intercourse will not finally be reduced to a number of persons assembling to sit in silent meditation upon the subjects which are not to be spoken of? One so soon exhausts the absolutely correct topics."