The Cassowary; What Chanced in the Cleft MountainsWaterloo, Stanley
General
The Cassowary; What Chanced in the Cleft Mountains
Waterloo, Stanley
Love stories; Railroad travel -- Fiction; Storytelling -- Fiction
Breakfast Seventh.--Graham came in, looking bilious. He hesitated before
ordering, but finally decided that he would take his quail chopped up
into stew. There was some debate over this, and the committee finally
went into the restaurant kitchen, to see that nothing got away. The stew
seemed to please Graham and he made numerous jests at the expense of the
men, "who," he said, "had no stomachs."
Breakfast Eighth.--Graham ordered quail stew again, but did not get
along so well as he had on the previous morning. He declared the bird to
be stale and said that it smelled "quailly." As a matter of fact, it was
a plump young bird, shot only the day before.
Breakfast Ninth.--To the astonishment of everybody, Graham, who looked
more bilious than ever, ordered quail hash. The committee was indignant,
but there was no recourse, and so they were compelled to visit the
kitchen again and watch the career of the quail from plucking to plate.
Graham became furious. He said it was a shame to doubt the honesty of
the establishment. He ate the quail.
It is unnecessary to continue in detail the story of the breakfasts in
the great restaurant. Each day Graham became more petulant and
unreasonable. All ways of cooking quail were at last exhausted, and
there was a compelled return to some of those already employed. Graham
by the fifteenth day had become haggard and the very odor of the
delicate bird, as it came in, brought to him a feeling of utmost nausea.
He was brusque with the faithful waiter, and took no interest in the
conversation of his friends. He was plucky, though, and managed, by
sheer force of will, to consume the distasteful ration. Meanwhile, the
wager had become the comment of the town, especially among the wealthy
youth, and thousands of dollars were staked upon the issue. The
restaurant was thronged each morning, and the proprietor wished he had
some such attraction to such a class throughout all the rotund year.
This notoriety but made the case of poor Graham worse; it made him more
anxious to succeed, but it unnerved him.
On the twentieth day the odds, which had at first been in favor of
Graham, dropped to no odds at all, and on the twenty-second they were
against him. He came in with a pallid look upon his face and sat down
before his dainty fare. He took up his knife and fork; then suddenly
laid them down and left the place. Within ten minutes he returned with a
set face and resolutely performed his task. Where he had been was not
known at the time, but it was rumored, later, in the Southern Hotel
(which was in the same block) that there had been sold a half-pint
bottle of champagne that morning to a gentleman in a hurry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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