What a delightful tea-room is this!  With its woodwork, its panelling, and its little window lattices, all in beautiful enamelled white. That is not a tea-room!  I’m ’sprised at you.  That is a laundry.  A laundry?  Shades of Hop Loo!  It is even so.  There are a variety of types of laundry in this part of the world, but the great point of them all is their “sanitary” character.  All things are sanitary here; the shaving brushes at the barber’s are proclaimed sanitary; “sanitary tailoring” is announced; and the creameries of this district, it would seem, go beyond anything yet achieved elsewhere in the way of sanitation.  It might be imagined from a study of window signs that a perverse person bent upon procuring un-"pasteurized” milk in this part of town would be frustrated of his design.

I was sent to what my understanding conceived to be the “bakery” in our immediate neighbourhood, on an errand.  This place, I found, was called the “Queen Elizabeth.”  I was dreadfully abashed when I got inside.  I was afraid that there might be some bit of mud on my shoes which would soil the polished floor; and I became keenly conscious that my trowsers were not perfectly pressed.  I should, of course, have worn my tail-coat.  There were several ladies there receiving guests that afternoon.  I had a tete-a-tete with one of these, who gossiped pleasantly about the cakes—­I was to get some cakes.  The nicest cakes at the “Queen Elizabeth,” it seems, are of two kinds:  “Maids of Court” and “Ladies in Waiting.”  Our neighbourhood is rich in shops given to “pastry,” “sweets,” “bon bons.”  Shops of charming names!  There is the “Ambrosia Confection Shop,” and the place of the “Patisserie et Confiserie.”

In our neighbourhood there are, too, a vast number of “caterers” and “fruiterers,” and, particularly, delicatessen shops.  Delicatessen shops in our neighbourhood are described upon the windows as places dealing in “fancy and table luxuries.”  I have heard my wife say that many people “just live out of them.”  They are certainly handsome places.  Why, you wouldn’t think there was any food in them.  Everything is so dressed up that it doesn’t look at all as if it were to eat, it is so attractive.

Restaurants hereabouts are commonly named “La Parisienne,” or something like that, or are called “rotisseries.”  There are some just ordinary restaurants, too, and many immaculate, light-lunch rooms.  “Afternoon Tea” is a frequent sign, and one often sees the delicate suggestion in neat gilt, “Sandwiches.”  Grocers in this part of town, it would seem, handle only “select,” “fancy,” and “choice” groceries, and “hot-house products.”  There are a number of fine “markets” in this district, very fine markets indeed.  In the season for game, deer and bears may be seen strung up in front of them; all their chickens appear to come from Philadelphia, their ducks are “fresh killed Long Island ducks,” and they make considerable of a feature of “frogs’ legs.”  These markets are usually called the “Superior Market,” or the “Quality Market,” or something like that.  Great residential hotels here bear the name of “halls,” as “Brummel Hall” on the one hand and “Euripides Hall” on the other.