Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/151

way down the little area was a low door with a huge stone lintel-piece over which was a large canvas sign: THE COMMUTATION CHOPHOUSE.

I must confess to an irrational affection for quaint eating places, and having explored downtown New York's crowded cafés and lunchrooms rather carefully in quest of a congenial tavern, the Commutation Chophouse struck me as highly original and pleasing. We stepped down into a very large and rather dark cellar that apparently had previously been used as a carpenter's shop, for a good many traces of the earlier tenancy were still visible. The furnishings were of the plainest, consisting simply of heavy wooden tables and benches. There was no linen on the tables, but the wood had been scrubbed scrupulously clean and there were piles of tissue napkins. From a door at the back waiters came rushing with trays of food. A glorious clatter of knives and forks filled the air, and it looked at first as though we would find no place to sit. As Dove expressed it, the room was loaded to the muzzle; and a continuous stream of patrons was coming down the alley, allured by the sandwich man and the absurd thin gayety of the fiddle. By the front door stood a dark young man, behind a small counter, selling tickets.