I had not yet seen the inside of a
dining-car (while stopping at a hotel I would not indulge in a
dining-room meal uuless I deemed it advisable to do so for
business considerations). On this occasion, however, when most
of our group went to the dining-car I could not help joining them.
The lanky man, the little Chicagoan, and the fleshy
Chicagoan--the three "stars" of the smoker--went to the same table,
and I hastened, with their ready permission, to occupy the
remaining seat at that table. I ordered an expensive dinner. At my
instance the chat turned on national politics, a subject in which I
felt at home, owing to my passion for newspaper editorials. I said
something which met with an encouraging reception, and then I
entered upon a somewhat elaborate discourse. My listeners
seemed to be interested. I was so absorbed in the topic and in the
success I was apparently scoring that I was utterly oblivious to the
taste of the food in my mouth. But I was aware that it was
"aristocratic American" food, that I was in the company of
well-dressed American Gentiles, eating and conversing with them,
a nobleman among noblemen.
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