A few hours after my nap, it was time again for calories and I was at the Kosher Nosh restaurant with the old flesh and blood—Aunt Florence and Uncle Irwin. Jeeves was home, doing who knows what—probably writing letters to fellow valets in servitude in far-off lands. Meanwhile, I was meditatively chewing on a large, wartish, dark green pickle. I had already broached the coffee matter during the car ride to the restaurant, and my uncle, as Jeeves had predicted, was perfectly reasonable and forgiving; so now, with each bite of my pickle, I was gathering up the courage to tackle the next difficult issue—to let the old f. and b. know that their beloved nephew was going to take wing the next morning.
It was part of our normal routine to go to the Kosher Nosh on Monday nights. It was a delicatessen restaurant with about fifty simple tables, all very close to one another, and the whole place was bathed in bright fluorescent lights. On one side of the establishment was the dining area, and on the other was a thirty-foot glass counter filled with all sorts of meats and salads and knishes of various origins, and behind the counter were usually about half a dozen yarmulked, white-smocked countermen, who engaged in playful Yiddish banter and efficient meat-slicing and shouted with authority, “Next!”
The clientele of the Kosher Nosh were ancient Jews who had no business eating pastrami sandwiches. They hardly looked like they could walk, let alone digestively break...
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