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Show -193- His friend shook his head. As they progressed down the line, past the steam tables that mingled the odors^ham and cabbage, beans, and thin-sliced roast beef, the Professor's appetite diminished. He chose, f i nally, only a pastrami sandwich and a glass of beer. As he carried his tray into the large dining room, he recalled how this place had once been a fine restaurant. The tables, now bare except for the usual cluster of sugar, catsup, and mustard containers, had once been covered in white linen, and had been serviced by waiters in shiny black jackets and striped trousers. The food had been prepared on the premises by a f i r st class chef, not cooked elsewhere and trucked here to be kept warm in steam trays and ladled out by indifferent young men, whose t a l l chef's caps made them look, not dignified, but r i diculous • The Professor found a table near the window and placed his food on i t . One thing the management had been unable to change was the view to the west. It was a gray, overcast day, but the clouds were high, and beneath them the Pacific Ocean, which he could see above the rooftops and trees about a mile distant, sparkled silvery to the horizon. The day was calm, but the waves, the Professor knew, were not as calm as they appeared a t t h i s distance. On the beach, the breakers would be rolling in, white-topped and frothy. Sometimes from here you could see ships heading in toward the Golden Gate, but t o day the sea was empty. |