To-day there are 750 successors to the old _Delmonico_ in daily service on the railroads of the United States. A small regiment of men earn their livelihood upon them; some genius, handy with a lead pencil, has estimated that these serve some 60,000 meals--breakfast, lunch, and dinner--every day. The amount of food and drink consumed is a matter that is left to the statistician. The average full-sized dining-car seats 40 persons, but that does not represent the business it does. Unless the car can be completely filled two or more times at each meal, it is not considered a profitable run. The European method of reserving seats at "first table" or "second table" has never obtained in the United States, and the wise man on a popular train sacrifices his dignity and hurries toward the dining-car at the first intimation that the meal is ready. To take care of the hungry folk a dining-car crew of nine men is kept busy. The car is in absolute charge of a conductor or steward, who is held sharply accountable by the dining-car superintendent of the road for the conduct of his men and of his car. He signs a receipt for the car equipment before starting on his run out over the line, and he must see to it that none of that equipment, not a single napkin or spoon out of all his stock, is missing at its end. He is held in as strict account for the appearance and behavior of his men. The waiters must be neatly dressed, must have clean linen; the conductor himself must be something of a Beau Brummel, carrying a certain polite smile toward each one of the road's patrons, no matter how disagreeable or cranky he or she may be. For all of these things and many others--maintaining a sharp guard over the car's miniature wine-cellars, adding "specials" to the bill-of-fare for a given day, acting as a cashier for the service--he receives a princely salary, varying from $75 to $110 a month. His crew, as far as the passengers see it, consists of five men, almost always negroes. Back in the tiny kitchen is the chef, with two assistants, preparing the food. The kitchen is tiny. It is less than five feet wide and fifteen feet long, and the three men who work within it must have a place for everything in it, including themselves. Obviously there is no room for the waiters, and these receive their supplies through a small wicket window. If the kitchen is tiny, it is also marvellously complete. An ice-box fits upon and takes half the space of the wide vestibule platform; the range has the compact dimensions of a yacht's range; sinks, pots, and kettles fit into inconceivably small spaces. Yet in these tiny cubbyholes one hundred, ofttimes many more dinners, of seven or eight courses each, are carefully prepared, with a skill in the cooking that is a marvel to restaurateurs.