Theres Pippins and Cheese to Come

There's Pippins and Cheese to
Come

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Title: There's Pippins And Cheese To Come
Author: Charles S. Brooks
Release Date: November 8, 2003 [EBook #10023]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Other Books by the Same Author:
"Journeys to Bagdad" Sixth printing.

"Chimney-Pot Papers" Third printing.
"Hints to Pilgrims"

THERE'S PIPPINS
AND
CHEESE TO COME
BY
CHARLES S. BROOKS
1917
Illustrated by Theodore Diedricksen, Jr.

TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER

CONTENTS
I. There's Pippins and Cheese to Come
II. On Buying Old Books
III. Any Stick Will Do to Beat a Dog
IV. Roads of Morning
V. The Man of Grub Street Comes from His Garret
VI. Now that Spring is Here
VII. The Friendly Genii

VIII. Mr. Pepys Sits in the Pit
IX. To an Unknown Reader
X. A Plague of All Cowards
XI. The Asperities of the Early British Reviewers
XII. The Pursuit of Fire

THERE'S PIPPINS AND CHEESE TO COME

There's Pippins and Cheese To Come
In my noonday quest for food, if the day is fine, it is my habit to shun
the nearer places of refreshment. I take the air and stretch myself. Like
Eve's serpent I go upright for a bit. Yet if time presses, there may be
had next door a not unsavory stowage. A drinking bar is nearest to the
street where its polished brasses catch the eye. It holds a gilded mirror
to such red-faced nature as consorts within. Yet you pass the bar and
come upon a range of tables at the rear.
Now, if you yield to the habits of the place you order a rump of meat.
Gravy lies about it like a moat around a castle, and if there is in you the
zest for encounter, you attack it above these murky waters. "This castle
hath a pleasant seat," you cry, and charge upon it with pike advanced.
But if your appetite is one to peck and mince, the whiffs that breathe
upon the place come unwelcome to your nostrils. In no wise are they
like the sweet South upon your senses. There is even a suspicion in
you--such is your distemper--that it is too much a witch's cauldron in
the kitchen, "eye of newt, and toe of frog," and you spy and poke upon
your food. Bus boys bear off the crockery as though they were
apprenticed to a juggler and were only at the beginning of their art.
Waiters bawl strange messages to the cook. It's a tongue unguessed by
learning, yet sharp and potent. Also, there comes a riot from the kitchen,

and steam issues from the door as though the devil himself were a
partner and conducted here an upper branch. Like the man in the old
comedy, your belly may still ring dinner, but the tinkle is faint. Such
being your state, you choose a daintier place to eat.
Having now set upon a longer journey--the day being fine and the
sidewalks thronged--you pass by a restaurant that is but a few doors up
the street. A fellow in a white coat flops pancakes in the window. But
even though the pancake does a double somersault and there are twenty
curious noses pressed against the glass, still you keep your course
uptown.
Nor are you led off because a near-by stairway beckons you to a
Chinese restaurant up above. A golden dragon swings over the door. Its
race has fallen since its fire-breathing grandsire guarded the fruits of
the Hesperides. Are not "soys" and "chou meins" and other such
treasures of the East laid out above? And yet the dragon dozes at its
post like a sleepy dog. No flame leaps up its gullet. The swish of its tail
is stilled. If it wag at all, it's but in friendship or because a gust of wind
has stirred it from its dreams.
I have wondered why Chinese restaurants are generally on the second
story. A casual inquiry attests it. I know of one, it is true, on the ground
level, yet here I suspect a special economy. The place had formerly
been a German restaurant, with Teuton scrolls, "Ich Dien," and
heraldries on its walls. A frugal brush changed the decoration. From the
heart of a Prussian blazonry, there flares on you in Chinese yellow a
recommendation to