midday
The _ Recorder _ of that morning had done me handsomely , declaring my opening to have been a social event long to be remembered , and describing the costumes of a dozen or more of the smartly gowned matrons , quite as if it had been an assembly ball . My task now was to see that the Grill was kept to the high level of its opening , both as a social ganglion , if one may use the term , and as a place to which the public would ever turn for food that mattered . For my first luncheon the raccoons had prepared , under my direction , a steak-and-kidney pie , in addition to which I offered a thick soup and a pudding of high nutritive value . To my pleased astonishment the crowd at midday was quite all that my staff could serve , several of the Hobbs brood being at school , and the luncheon was received with every sign of approval by the business persons who sat to it . Not only were there drapers , chemists , and shop-assistants , but solicitors and barristers , bankers and estate agents , and all quite eager with their praise of my fare . To each of these I explained that I should give them but few things , but that these would be food in the finest sense of the word , adding that the fault of the American school lay in attempting a too-great profusion of dishes , none of which in consequence could be raised to its highest power . So sound was my theory and so nicely did my simple-dished luncheon demonstrate it that I was engaged on the spot to provide the bi-monthly banquet of the Chamber of Commerce , the president of which rather seriously proposed that it now be made a monthly affair , since they would no longer be at the mercy of a hotel caterer whose ambition ran inversely to his skill .