Tonight he was tired of life and dejected from a battle with the stingy backers, who had warned him for the last time once more that he had to economize. He needed to forget such people and the loathsome enemy of fancy, economy. “I want to order something as exquisite as you are,” he said. “Of course, there could be nothing as exquisite as you are, Miss Adair--you were curled up on a silver dish with a little apple in your mouth like a young roast pig. Ever read Lamb on pig?” Kedzie laughed with glancing tintinnabulations as if one tapped a row of glasses with a knife. Ferriday sighed. He saw that she had never heard of Lamb and thought he was perpetrating an ancient pun. But he did not like bookish women and he often said that nothing was more becoming to a woman than ignorance. They should have wisdom, but no learning. Ferriday was one of those terrifying persons who know, or pretend to know, curious secrets about restaurants and their resources. Wine-cellars and the individualities of chefs had no terror for him so far as she could see. He expressed contempt for apparent commonplaces that Kedzie had never heard of. He used French words with an accent that Kedzie supposed to be perfect. The waiters knew that he did not know much and had merely picked up a smattering of dining-room lore, but they humored his affectations. And of all affectations, what is more futile than the printing of American bills of fare in French? “Would you prefer the Astrakhan caviar?” he began on Kedzie, “or some or-durv? The caviar here is fairly trustworthy.” Kedzie shrugged her perfectly accented shoulders in a cowardly evasion, and he ordered the first caviar Kedzie had ever eaten. It looked as if it came from a munitions-factory, but she liked it immensely, especially as a side-long glance at the bill of fare told her that it cost one dollar and twenty-five cents per person. Next he proposed either a potage madrilene or a creme de volaille, Marie Louise. Kedzie chose the latter because it was the latter. She mumbled: “I think a little cremmy vly Marie Louisa would be nice.” She was amazed to find later how much it tasted like chicken soup. “We don't want any fish, do we?” Ferriday moaned. “Or do we? They don't really understand the supreme de sole a la Verdi here, so suppose we skip to the roast, unless you would risk the aigulette de pompano, Coquelin. The last time I had a troncon de saumon here I had to send it back.” Kedzie said, “Let's skip.” She shuddered. The word reminded her, as always, of Skip Magruder. She remembered how he had hung over the table that far-away morning and recommended ham 'n'eggs. His dirty shirt-sleeves and his grin came back to her now. The gruesome Banquo reminded her so vividly of her early guilt of plebeiancy that she shivered. The alert Ferriday noticed it and called: “Have that window closed at once. There's an infernal draught here.”