have the teas of all nations stted menu of the American hotel, As olives and.celery dot
our menu of international dining. Perhaps we were not taught, but at least we gathered during geography days that Russians drank from samovars, Germans from steins, French from bottles, the British, the red blood of half-cooked Steaks, Norwegians from coffee pots, and the Chinese from soaps lants.
ur mother being Irish, we had tea of an afternoon at home, but until we came to Shanghai' we always felt that custom to be a family discrepancy. to be lived Here we find it a taste to be acquired, and its ritual.as sacred as any art.
We have slipped -nervously at French and italian tea while generating courage to attack the deceptive sweet lying so" quietly on our plate, but which we know grasshopper, when alarmed at our will, like the spitbug and the
touch, discharge a sticky baffling fluid in all directions. We have battled With the -brittlé "fatima and berlinkronze behind" Scandiavian coffee cups. But the capital tea of Shanghai to us was Turkish.
Perhaps because we never before had seen women sitting cross-legged on divans. More probably because the hostess with gracious intent deprived us the adventure of experiencing the tiny dark sweetness and avoirdupois. She had heard,—is it not so, that the ladies of America eat only the devil's food and the angel's cake. In serving us then with-a foaming plate of the angel's-food and all the rest with Turkish sweets, was she rendering unto Caesar etc., or endeavouring to offer us material inspiration?
In the plain-speaking and plain-living traditions of the little middle western town where we grew up, "maids" were: unknown, and meals were never "served." The "hired girl" an-the kitchen, -"Dinner's ready." nounced more or less gently from Referring to a meal afterwards, we always said we had "had"' it. When in Jane. Austen or some kindred writer, we. cams- across the elegant reply, " "Gentlemens
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.