Love among the lobsters

HEYWOOD BROUN

Gordon's Garden of Sea Food has a seating capacity of three thousand. The menu says that it is the largest establishment of the sort in America. It is "the only restaurant in the whole world serving purified lobsters." "Gordon does for the lobster what Pasteur did for milk." "Eat 'em where they catch 'em." "We are open all the year—let Gordon's be your home while you are at the Beach." "We aim to satisfy—a satisfied customer is worth his weight in steamed soft clams."

But Lucius Lee, Ph.D., did not feel much at home in this vast haven of hospitality. He could not make up his mind whether to take the special shore dinner for $1.25 or risk all on the stuffed lobster platter at $1.50. The shadow of the waitress fell across the bill of fare. Dr. Lee put it down and observed that a small card, set at the edge of his table, proclaimed the fact, "Your waitress' name is Minnie—No. 22—she hopes to please you."

"My name is Lucius," said the doctor of philosophy politely, "and, Minnie, I must confess that I am in a quandary."

"What seems to be the trouble," asked No. 22 who was of medium height, fair in color and decidedly personable.

"I am trying to pick some combination from your list which does not obligate me to take either steamed clams or potato salad."

"There's the two-dollar Planked Fish Plate, sir. The one in the upper right hand corner. It has a star on it."

"No, Minnie, look closer and you will perceive that you are mistaken. There it is set down quite plainly in black and white—steamed clams with drawn butter. And it's the same on the Assorted Sea Food Platter, the Crab Au Gratin Platter and your famous $1 Chowder Dinner."

"You are right. It's a saying we have here at Gordon's—the customer is always right. But why not bow to the inevitable. Our steamed soft clams are famous from coast to coast. What is it the poet says—"

"Just a minute, Minnie," interrupted Dr. Lucius Lee, Ph.D., as he whipped out his horned rim spectacles and adjusted them, "I do not know what the poet says about steamed clams, but I perceive that you are no ordinary waitress. In fact I gravely suspect that you are not a creature of flesh and blood but a character out of fiction, a figure in a deplorable magazine form called the short-short."

"And you, sir, are obviously an educator."

"Your accurate guess is based upon the cultured diction, the flow of ideas?"

"Not at all. I am judging by the large yellow button in your coat lapel. To refresh your memory it reads: 'Atlantic City 1935—Convention of School Superintendents—My name is Thomas Watson.' You told me it was Lucius but, of course, an educator can't be too careful."

"My name is still Lucius, but I got into the convention on another man's button. I've just lost my job and that's why I don't want to eat soft clams or potato salad."

"Very good, sir. You could, of course, order the Diced Tenderloin Steak Platter and escape both clams and potato salad."

"And you are not going to ask me to explain my ambiguous remark? It says on the card that you hope to please me."

"Very well, what on earth have steamed clams got to do with your being fired."

"It's the other way around. Minnie, I am a victim of academic freedom. The things I want to teach, the trustees won't allow. The things they want me to teach I simply detest. I haven't exactly been fired but I have my written resignation in my pocket. I've been carrying it for three days. All I need is a stamp. I can't stomach your potato salad or your soft steamed clams because you—I mean you as the official representative of Gordon's Garden of Sea Food—have tried to make them compulsory. Please bring me a broiled live lobster with drawn butter."

"Dr. Lucius, I plead with you to rescind that order. Didn't you read on the menu that Gordon's is the only restaurant in the world serving purified lobsters?"

"Yes, I did. I thought it was peculiar."

"Do you know how our lobsters are purified?"

"No."

"By salt water, sir, and suffering. If you were to walk over to our lobster pool, which all guests are invited to inspect, you would see them with wooden pegs stuck in their claws to keep from fighting. I mean the lobsters. To keep them from hurting each other, as you might say ironically. Don't you realize that you are a purified lobster yourself teaching classes with a wooden spike in your claw. Your order would be sheer cannibalism. In fact don't order anything. Go mail that letter. You must. It's your chance to be free."

"May I ask, mildly enough, Minnie, why you seem to feel that you understand my case so acutely?"

"Because up to one month ago I taught American History in an Atlantic City High School. I said in the class room one day that there was no reason to believe that Thomas Jefferson was enthusiastic about the Constitution that Alexander Hamilton wrote, and the trustees threw me out."

"That's funny. I got in hot water by writing an article called 'The Declaration of Independence, but the Constitution of the United States.' Still, I don't see why I should be sent home without my dinner just because of some modern confusion concerning the Federalists."

"I was going to suggest that I get through here in ten minutes and that you might take me to a little restaurant only half a mile up the board walk. You may have noticed that there's a moon."

"Nevertheless, I have no intention, this evening, of asking you to marry me."

"That was not within my own plan either. I was wondering whether you heard Dean Russell at yesterday's session of the convention. He said, for instance, that if there were to be a bath tub in every American home it might be necessary to allow the Federal Government power to say at what precise hour each rugged individual should take a bath. I think there's a good deal in that."

"Nevertheless, don't try to change the subject, Minnie. It is utterly preposterous that two victims of academic freedom should have met in this manner at Gordon's Garden of Sea Food. That makes it a short short. But not unless something happens. Something which makes it possible to give it a title such as 'Love Among the Lobsters'. Otherwise it's just a sketch which leaves you in never-never land. I'm again under an obligation—the obligation of a formula. I don't want to propose. I don't want to be a purified lobster with a spike in my claw. But what would 0. Henry have me say? What would any of the ninety and nine on whom his mantle has fallen compel me to do. Will you marry me, Minnie?"

They stood in the moonlight clasped in each other's arms. But only for an instant. The touch of her lips instantly reminded Dr. Lucius Lee of something he had forgotten. He passed a puzzled hand over his eyes.

"Minnie," he said, "I must apologize. I have just remembered something which will make it imperative that we strike my last request from the record. I can't ask you to marry me. It all comes back to me, I have a wife and two children at home. I'm so sorry."

And now it was Minnie's turn to pass her hand before her puzzled eyes. When she had done so she was positively beaming.

"Don't think of apologizing, Professor," she said. "I too had overlooked something. I recall now why I suggested that we go to Jake's Marine Grill for a snack. You see, he used to be a radical professor of Anglo-Saxon literature at Haverford and I married the man only yesterday."