The Rector Cook Book PDF by George Rector

From introduction

For almost a quarter of a century Rector’s was the supreme court of triviality, where who’s who went to learn what’s what. 

It was the cathedral of froth, where New York chased the rainbow, and the butterfly netted the entomologist. It was the national museum of habits, the bourse of gossip, and the clearing house of rumors. 

No personal triumph was complete unless validated by an evening at Rector’s, in much the same way that the conqueror exhibited the conquered in a procession through the arches of ancient and imperial Rome.

Champions, challengers, opera stars, explorers, captains of industry and lieutenants of sloth; gamblers, authors, and adventurers—all celebrated their temporary successes with a night at Rector’s, and I know that Broadway did not really believe that Peary had discovered the Pole or Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet until it saw them both in my restaurant. 

My clientéle numbered the best and the greatest in the land, and was the incubator which hatched that man without a country, 

Wilton Lackaye, one of our greatest actors, observed Berry Wall promenading into Rector’s one evening and blinked at the superb assemblage of good taste. Berry was wearing a pearl derby, white vest, cutaway coat, and had a flower in his buttonhole. Wilton stared a minute and then said, in a dry manner that would make the Sahara Desert almost a lush meadow, “Add spats and stir with a cane.’”

 Lackaye is a wit who is not properly appreciated in America, which may be due to his refusal to resort to the vernacular. His command of English is so perfect that his victims often wonder what the crowd is laughing about. Wilton is the man who, having lost one of a valuable pair of cuff links in his club, hung up the remaining link on the club bulletin board over this notice: “Lost—The mate to this cuff link. Will buy or sell.”