HUNGRY AMID PLENTY.
GUEST AT PROMINENT HOTEL BE-
WILDERED BY FOREIGN NAMES.
Unused to Metropolitan Hotels and
Cafes, Oklahoman Longs for
Plain Ham and Eggs of
Home Hostelry.
In the Hotel Baltimore for twenty-four hours, surrounded by all the luxuries and lavishly furnished cafes and dining rooms, with the most tempting good things to eat in store, and with plenty of money to satisfy his every want, a young Oklahoma business man meekly submitted to the gnawing pain of hunger because he thought it was necessary for him to speak at least one of six different foreign languages before he could order what he wanted to eat. The young man arrived at the hotel Friday evening, his friends say. He registered and was assigned to a nice room with bath. When he came down yesterday morning he asked a friend where was the best place to eat.
"In the automobile room," the friend told him.
"I have no automobile; what do I want to go into the automobile room for a meal for," the young man from Oklahoma soliloquized. He asked another guest of the hotel whom he saw walking through the lobby with a toothpick in his mouth, where he could be served with the best meal.
ON EUROPEAN TOUR.
"In the Egyptian room, of course," the guest told him. Again the young business man was stumped. He couldn't speak the old Egyptian language and he just knew he couldn't make the waiters in that Egyptian room understand what he wanted. He studied over the situation for an hour or so and asked another guest for information.
"The Italian room is the best if it is open," he was advised.
That was no better than the automobile and the Egyptian rooms. He couldn't speak Italian and hoped he never would.
"By heck, I must be dreaming," the young man said to himself. "Am I on a trip around the world." He felt his pockets and found he had spent none of his money for a trip of that duration. He pinched himself and found he was awake. He decided to make another break. He encountered a round-faced, good natured traveling man and asked to be directed into the best place around the hotel to get a meal.
BLOW ALMOST KILLED FATHER.
"The Pompeian room has just been opened and the German room is a good place if it hasn't been abandoned," was the information obtained.
"Dad bat it, if I was to go into either of those rooms and couldn't speak the languages they are just as liable to serve me with roast mummies or sauerkraut as anything else," remarked the exasperated young man, almost helpless with hunger and rage. He made one last desperate effort and asked one of the employes of the hotel where he could get a quiet dining room where plenty of plain eating would be served.
"The Japanese or the Chinese tea rooms are the best for private dinners, the employe informed him.
That was the severest blow yet administered. H e knew just about as much about Japanese and Chinese as an ordinary Oklahoma cow puncher knows about Broadway.
GRILL ROOM SAVED HIM.
He pulled himself over into one corner of the lobby and sank himself deep down into one of the upholstered leather chairs, pulled his hat over his face and dreamed over the juicy beef steaks, delicious coffee and the well cooked dishes served in a plain dining room in the Oklahoma hotels, where every one speaks English in the American style.
"I will go into the basement and kick myself," the young man said, as he picked himself up with some exertion and wandered down the stairway which leads to the grill room.
"Come this way," a negro waiter said, as the young man landed in the grill room, and was led to one of the tables, was seated and had placed before him a bill of fare printed in plain English.
"Saved," was the only sound he uttered until he began working on that meal as only a hungry man can work. It was then 6 o'clock in the afternoon and he hadn't had a thing to eat since the evening before.
