Fulkerson led him down one block and half across another to the steps of a small dwelling-house, transformed, like many others, into a restaurant of the Latin ideal, with little or no structural change from the pattern of the lower middle-class New York home.  There were the corroded brownstone steps, the mean little front door, and the cramped entry with its narrow stairs by which ladies could go up to a dining-room appointed for them on the second floor; the parlors on the first were set about with tables, where men smoked cigarettes between the courses, and a single waiter ran swiftly to and fro with plates and dishes, and, exchanged unintelligible outcries with a cook beyond a slide in the back parlor.  He rushed at the new-comers, brushed the soiled table-cloth before them with a towel on his arm, covered its worst stains with a napkin, and brought them, in their order, the vermicelli soup, the fried fish, the cheese-strewn spaghetti, the veal cutlets, the tepid roast fowl and salad, and the wizened pear and coffee which form the dinner at such places.

“Ah, this is nice!” said Fulkerson, after the laying of the charitable napkin, and he began to recognize acquaintances, some of whom he described to March as young literary men and artists with whom they should probably have to do; others were simply frequenters of the place, and were of all nationalities and religions apparently—­at least, several were Hebrews and Cubans.  “You get a pretty good slice of New York here,” he said, “all except the frosting on top.  That you won’t find much at Maroni’s, though you will occasionally.  I don’t mean the ladies ever, of course.”  The ladies present seemed harmless and reputable-looking people enough, but certainly they were not of the first fashion, and, except in a few instances, not Americans.  “It’s like cutting straight down through a fruitcake,” Fulkerson went on, “or a mince-pie, when you don’t know who made the pie; you get a little of everything.”  He ordered a small flask of Chianti with the dinner, and it came in its pretty wicker jacket.  March smiled upon it with tender reminiscence, and Fulkerson laughed.  “Lights you up a little.  I brought old Dryfoos here one day, and he thought it was sweet-oil; that’s the kind of bottle they used to have it in at the country drug-stores.”

“Yes, I remember now; but I’d totally forgotten it,” said March.  “How far back that goes!  Who’s Dryfoos?”

“Dryfoos?” Fulkerson, still smiling, tore off a piece of the half-yard of French loaf which had been supplied them, with two pale, thin disks of butter, and fed it into himself.  “Old Dryfoos?  Well, of course!  I call him old, but he ain’t so very.  About fifty, or along there.”

“No,” said March, “that isn’t very old—­or not so old as it used to be.”

“Well, I suppose you’ve got to know about him, anyway,” said Fulkerson, thoughtfully.  “And I’ve been wondering just how I should tell you.  Can’t always make out exactly how much of a Bostonian you really are!  Ever been out in the natural-gas country?”