On the great routes, European customs prevail; but in the smaller towns, hotels are still run on what is termed the “American plan.” A few days after landing in New York, I went to Albany to give a reading. I was due on the platform at eight. I did not have any lunch. I thought I would dine early and afterwards sit quiet. I put out my clothes and came downstairs. The dining-room was empty. There didn't seem to be any bell. I found the gentleman who had sent me up to my room. He was sitting in a rocking-chair, reading a newspaper.
“I beg your pardon,” I said. “But are you the hotel clerk?”
“Yup,” he grunted and went on reading.
“I am sorry to disturb you,” I continued, “but I want the head waiter.”
“What do you want him for?” he said. “Friend of yours?”
“No,” I answered, “I want to order dinner.”
He was still reading his newspaper. “You haven't got to order it,” he said. “It will be ready at half-past six.”
“But I want it now,” I said. The time was a little after four.
He put down his paper and looked at me.
“Say, where do you come from?” he asked me.
“I have come from New York,” I answered him.
“You ain't been even there long,” he commented. “Englishman, aren't you?”
I admitted it.
He rose and laid a kindly hand on my shoulder.
“You run along and take a look round the town,” he said. “Interesting city. Anyhow, there's nothing else for you to do, till half-past six.”
I followed his advice. It wasn't really an interesting city. Or maybe I was not in the mood. At six o'clock I came back and dressed. I was feeling hungry. When I saw the “menu” I felt hungrier still. It would have made Lucullus sit up and smile. It covered two closely written pages, and contained, so far as I could judge, every delicacy in and out of season.
I order caviare and clam soup, to open with. I was doubtful about the clam soup, being new to it. But if too rich, I could just toy with it. The waiter, a youthful gentleman who apparently had mislaid his coat, remained standing.
“I'll think of the next thing to follow,” I said, “while you are getting that.”
“Better think of it now,” he said. “We haven't got the time to spare over here that you have in the old country.”
I did not want to antagonize him. I took up the menu again. I ordered whitebait to follow the soup. I told him I liked them crisp. A slice of broiled ham with truffles. Peas in butter. Lamb cutlet with tomatoes. Asparagus. Chicken (I mentioned I preferred the wing). A caramel ice cream. Dessert, assorted. Coffee, of course, to finish up with.
I was sorry to miss all the rest; but I had to think of my lecture. Even as it was I feared I had overdone it.
“That all?” asked the coatless young gentleman.
I thought he meant to be sarcastic, and put a touch of asperity into my tone.
“That is the order,” I said.
He was gone longer than I had expected. When he reappeared he was carrying a sort of butler's tray. He put it down in front of me, straightened out the four sides and left me.
There was everything on it—everything I had ordered, beginning with the caviare and ending with the coffee. All the things (except the soup and the coffee) were on little white saucers, all the same size. The whole thing suggested a doll's tea party. The soup was in a little white pot with a handle. That also might have been part of the furnishing of a doll's house. One drank it out of the pot—about a tablespoonful altogether. There were six whitebait and one shrimp. Thirteen peas. Three ends of asparagus. Five grapes and four nuts (assorted). Two square inches of ham, but no truffle: the thing I took for the truffle turned out to be a dead fly. The lamb cutlet I could not place. I fancy they must have given me the wrong end. The tomato I lost trying to cut it. It rolled off the table and I hadn't the heart to follow it up. For some reason or another they had fried the chicken. I did my best, but had to put it back. It didn't look any different. I wondered afterwards what happened to it.
I suppose it was not having had any lunch. If I had been by myself, I'd have put my head down on the tray and have cried. But three or four other men were feeding near me and I pulled myself together. I started with the coffee. It was still lukewarm. It seemed a pity to let it get quite cold. The caviare did not appeal to me. It may have been the smell. After the coffee, I tackled the ice cream, which by that time was already half melted. I stole a glance at my companions. None of them were bothering about a knife. They were just picking up things with a fork, first from one saucer and then from another. Somehow they suggested the idea of mechanical chickens. But it seemed the simplest plan and I followed their example.
I never got used to it. Natives, to whom occasionally I talked upon the subject, admitted that, considered as an art, the “European plan” of dining might be preferable; but would hasten to explain that America was “too busy”—the spry American citizen had not the time for all these social monkey tricks. I would leave them, settling themselves into their rocking-chairs, ranged round the hotel lounge, preparing to light their cigars and shape their plugs of tobacco. On my return some two or three hours later, they would still be there, smoking and spitting.
America can be proud of her railways. An American train with its majestic engine and its thousand feet of steel cars, is a fine sight. Always, we were glad to get into them, away from the comfortless hotels where one is harassed by the bell boy, bullied by the waiter, and patronized by the clerk. The darky porter welcomes one with a smile, and is not above being courteous. It is only in the dining-car that one can hope for a decently cooked meal. In the sleeping-car there is no telephone over one's bed, no patent improved radiator to go wrong, and keep one awake all night. There are stretches where for miles one can look out of the window without being pestered with advertisements. But one knows one is nearing a town by the hoardings each side of the track. The magnificent approach to San Francisco is spoilt by twenty miles of boards, advertising somebody's stores. “Carter's Little Liver Pills” does the same thing in England, to a lesser degree. I used to find them helpful, but have given up taking them, myself. At a Rotary dinner in London Mr. Carter (not to be personal) made quite a good speech on the subject of how one could best serve God. Anthony Hope suggested that one way might be not to mar God's landscapes with advertisement signs. In New York, I was arrested by a notice in a shop window. It ran: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” It was an advertisement for somebody's spring mattress. Except on a few main routes, punctuality is rare. There is excuse. The distances are enormous. The permanent ways are still in the making. Nature plays her tricks upon them. One does not bother about time-tables—the “schedule” as they call it. One waits until the message is sent round the town from the depôt that the train is signalled. One day, to my amazement, my train came in on time. It was at a junction. I had just got out of the branch train and was wondering what I would do with myself. The station-master was passing by.
“Any notion when she is likely to turn up,” I asked him—“the 11.33 for Sioux Falls?” It was then a minute past the half hour.