Hob, Mr. Priestley, Olaf, Lucille, Frieda, Jan, Pedro.

Hob: Can we talk this morning, sir, about food, about breakfasts and lunches and dinners, and so on? It is a subject that interests me very much.

Mr. Priestley: Certainly, Hob. But Lizzie could tell you more about this. She is a person who cooks our meals.

Hob: What did she cook for breakfast today, sir?

Mr. Priestley: We had fruit, boiled eggs, toast, bread and butter, marmalade, and tea.

Olaf: I had breakfast t his morning that I enjoyed very much; a cereal, bacon and eggs, marmalade, toasts coffee. I think there is nothing like an English breakfast.

Lucille: No bacon and eggs in the morning for me, thank you. My breakfast is always rolls and coffee.

Frieda: You can’t drink English coffee, can you?

Lucille: Luckily, at my hotel, there is a cook who is French; so I can drink the coffee.

Mr. Priestley: So you don’t like English coffee?

Lucille: Oh, no! English people can’t make good coffee. Olaf: That’s true. Their bacon, their bread, their tea are always good; their coffee is always bad.

Mr. Priestley: Where must I go to get a good coffee? Lucille: Come to France; we always make good coffee there.

Jan: I like Polish coffee; our coffee is always good.

Olaf: Come and taste the coffee that we make in Sweden. There is none like it.

Frieda: We make lovely coffee in Switzerland – coffee with thick cream in it.

Mr. Priestley: Pedro, you know many countries. You must give us your ideas.

Pedro: Well, The coffee of South America is really first-class. Then I got some Egyptian coffee in Cairo that I enjoyed very much. I drank some good coffee in Turkey. The Dutch know how to make good coffee. It is always good in Portugal.

Mr. Priestley: And what about England?

Pedro: In England I always drink tea.

Mr. Priestley: Thank you. I know where I can get a good coffee.

All THE STUDENTS: Where is it, sir? It is in my country, isn’t it?

Mr. Priestley: It seems in allcountries except England. Hob: Do you know the story about the man who was having breakfast in an English hotel? He took a drink from his cup and then said to the waiter, “Waiter, is this tea or coffee? ”

The waiter said, ”Can’t you tell the difference, sir, by the taste? ”

“No”, the man said, “I can’t.”

“Well, ” answered the waiter, ”if you can’t tell the difference, what does it matter, which it is? ”

Pedro: I think there is a sameness about English dinners that makes them uninteresting – boiled potatoes, roast beef that is often burned or not cooked enough, cabbage that is watery and tasteless.

Olaf: Well, you can say what you like, but give me my English breakfast and English food generally.

Jan: I think Olaf is right. Good roast beef, nicely browned roast potatoes, and…

Hob (interrupting): I know a song about roast beef. (Sings:

Oh! The roast beef of old England!

And Oh for the old English roast beef!) I am sorry that is the one line that I know.

Lucille: We are not sorry. The line that you sang was quite enough.

Jan: As I was saying when Hob interrupted me, where can you get roast beef like English beef?

Olaf: Or mutton like English mutton?

Pedro: Or soup like English hotel soup. Nowhere. Thank heaven!

Hob: Do you know the story of the man who was having soup in an English hotel? The waiter gave it to him and then, looking out of the window, said to the man, “It looks like rain, sir.”

“Yes, ” said the man, as he took a spoonful of soup, “and it tastes like rain, too.”

Jan: Soup doesn’t matter to me if I get some good beef and potatoes and then some bread and cheese and butter. After lunch like that, I can sleep all afternoon.

Pedro: The hotel that I am staying as it really quite good. We have …

Hob (again interrupting): Talking about hotels, do you know this story about King George III of England? He was in the country one day and stopped at a small hotel for lunch. He wasn’t very hungry, so he had only two boiled eggs. He ate them and asked for the bill. The landlord gave him the bill - two pounds. The King said, ”What! Two pounds for two eggs? Eggs must be very scarce here.”

“No, sir, ” said the landlord, eggs are not scarce – but kings are.”

Lucille: Oh, Hob, That’s an old story. You will see it in every book for foreign students. We can’t laugh at that. Hob: Oh, you ought to be like my Uncle Ben.

Lucille: Why, what is so good about him?

Hob: I’ll tell you. Here is a little poem that I wrote about him and his wife Bertha:

“A dear old man is my Uncle Ben,

He knows the joke but he laughs again.

He’s quite unlike his wife, Aunt Bertha,

Who looks as if the joke has hurt her.”