I don't know what it is, but by gad, sir, it's
three dollars a portion anyway."
"All right," I said. "You order the dinner."
Mr. Knickerbocker proceeded to do so, the head-waiter
obsequiously at his side, and his long finger indicating
on the menu everything that seemed most expensive and
that carried the most incomprehensible name. When he had
finished he turned to me again.
"Now," he said, "let's talk."
"Tell me," I said, "about the old days and the old times
on Broadway."
"Ah, yes," he answered, "the old days--you mean ten years
ago before the Winter Garden was opened. We've been going
ahead, sir, going ahead. Why, ten years ago there was
practically nothing, sir, above Times Square, and look
at it now."
I began to realize that Father Knickerbocker, old as he
was, had forgotten all the earlier times with which I
associated his memory. There was nothing left but the
_cabarets_, and the Gardens, the Palm Rooms, and the
ukuleles of to-day. Behind that his mind refused to
travel.
"Don't you remember," I asked, "the apple orchards and
the quiet groves of trees that used to line Broadway long
ago?"
"Groves!" he said. "I'll show you a grove, a coconut
grove"--here he winked over his wineglass in a senile
fashion--"that has apple-trees beaten from here to
Honolulu.
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