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speak Japanese. He once worked on freighters that went to the Orient, and he sometimes reminds people who hang out around the belly-shaped Terminal bar that he has a wonderful command of the Japanese language. When someone is skeptical and says, “Well, let’s hear some,” he always says haughtily, “What in hell would be the use of talking Jap to you? You wouldn’t comprehend a word I was saying.”
    Among the groups of rough-and-ready gourmands for whom Mr. Ellis is official chef are the I.D.K. (“I Don’t Know”) Bowling Club, a hoary outfit from Chelsea, and the Old Hoboken Turtle Club. This club was founded in 1796, and Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr were charter members; now it is an exclusive association of West Side and Jersey butchers, brewers, saloonkeepers, boss stevedores, and businessmen. Most of the members are elderly. Mr. Ellis has cooked for them since 1879. In 1929 they gave him a badge with a green turtle and a diamond on it and made him a Brother Turtle. The Turtles and the I.D.K.’s and many similar West Side organizations always hold their beefsteaks in the Terminal cellar, which is called the Hollings Beefsteak Keller after John Hollings, a former owner of the hotel, who sold out in disgust and moved to Weehawken when Prohibition was voted in. He used to store his coal in the cellar. Mr. Ellis refuses to call it a
Keller;
he calls it “my dungeon.”
    “In the old days all steak cellars were called dungeons,” he told me. “To me they’re still dungeons.”
             
    The dungeon has a steel door on which is printed the initials O.I.C.U.R.M.T. That is a good sample of beefsteak humor. Also on the door is a sign: WHEN YOU ENTER THIS KELLER YOU FIND A GOOD FELLER. The dungeon has a cement floor, over which sawdust has been scattered. The ceiling is low. On the trellised walls are yellowed beefsteak photographs ranging from an 1898 view of the M. E. Blankmeyer Clam Bake Club to a picture of a beefsteak thrown in 1932 by the New York Post Office Holy Name Society. Over the light switch is a warning: HANDS OFF THE THIRD RAIL. In one corner is a piano and a platform for a German band. The dungeon will hold 125 persons. “When a hundred and twenty-five big, heavy men get full of beer, it does seem a little crowded in here,” Mr. Ellis said. Beer crates and barrels were once used, but now people sit on slat-backed chairs and eat off small, individual tables. Down a subterranean hall from the dungeon is the ancient brick oven, over which Mr. Ellis presides with great dignity.
    “I’m not one of these hit-or-miss beefsteak chefs,” he said. “I grill my steaks on hickory embers. The efflorescence of seasoned hardwood is in the steak when you eat it. My beefsteaks are genuine old-fashioned. I’ll give you the official lineup. First we lay out celery, radishes, olives, and scallions. Then we lay out the crabmeat cocktails. Some people say that’s not old-fashioned. I’m eighty-three years old and I ought to know what’s old-fashioned. Then we lay out some skewered kidney shells. Lamb or pig—what’s the difference?
    “Then comes the resistance—cuts of seasoned loin of beef on hot toast with butter gravy. Sure, I use toast. None of this day-old-bread stuff for me. I know what I’m doing. Then we lay out some baked Idahoes. I let them have paper forks for the crabmeat and the Idahoes; everything else should be attended to with fingers. A man who don’t like to eat with his fingers hasn’t got any business at a beefsteak. Then we lay out the broiled duplex lamb chops. All during the beefsteak we are laying out pitchers of refreshment. By that I mean beer.”
    Mr. Ellis lives in the Bronx. Whenever Herman Von Twistern, the proprietor of the Terminal, books a beefsteak, he gets Mr. Ellis on the telephone and gives him the date. Usually he also telephones Charles V. Havican, a portly ex–vaudeville actor, who calls himself “the Senator from Hoboken.” He took the title