B929 <=> B931 (BTG XLII Beelzebub in America, p. 930)

“The waiter somehow arranged it, and I went into the kitchen.

“When I got there, what do you think? . . . What kind of picture did I see? . . . A stove with a hundred pots and pans?

“Not on your life!! . . .

“I saw there only a small what is called there ‘midget gas stove,’ such as what are called ‘old bachelors’ and ‘man-haters,’ that is to say ‘worthless spinsters,’ usually have in their rooms.

“By the side of this ‘pimple of a stove’ sat an extremely fat-necked cook of ‘Scotch origin’ reading the newspaper inseparable from every American; he was reading, it seems, the newspaper The Times.

“I looked around in amazement and also at the neck of this cook.

“While I was thus looking round in astonishment, a waiter came into the kitchen from the restaurant and, in peculiar English, ordered a certain very elaborate dish from this fat-necked cook.

“I think I may as well tell you that I then also noticed from his accent that the waiter who ordered this dish with a fancy name had only recently arrived there from the continent of Europe, obviously with the dream of filling his pockets there with American dollars – with that dream in fact about these American dollars which indeed every European has who has never been to America and which now allows no one in Europe to sleep in peace.

“When this aspirant to an ‘American multimillionairedom’ had ordered the said fancy dish from the fat-necked cook, the latter got up from his place without haste and very heavily, and first of all took down from the wall a small what is called there ‘bachelor’s frying pan.’