Not that the protesters were especially fearsome. There were only about 10 of them — roughly two, that is, for each keeper of the peace. They had assembled in response to an e-mail that's been floating around the Internet (on Philebrity, among other sites): "Hundreds of people lining up to order cheese steaks at Genos. Nothing unusual, right?... However, heres the twist: everybody lined up, one after another, will be ordering in any language besides English! Dont be surprised if none of those people get served. They probably wont be. Imagine the confusion!"

The language brigade, a motley group of twentysomethings on bikes, wasn't overeager. Several already knew each other, and they assembled across the street with their bikes and stood around talking. What would they do if the Geno's people actually served them? "That's the problem. No one wants to buy anything," said one girl. The sender of the e-mail was there, a young man in an acid green tie-dyed shirt whose parents are Bengali, but he didn't want to be identified. "What if they came after me? Like, 'Grrr.'" A moment later he decided on a name: "My name's Geno. I'll start a war!"

But there was no war, not today anyway. They formed a ragged line — and since some were more hesitant than others, their linguistic attack was broken at intervals by regular folk ordering in English. "Geno" went first, and he put up a good struggle to order in soft-spoken Bengali, but Geno's employee Jimmy Reds kept barking, inexplicably, "Set the bets! Set the bets!"

"Where're the cops at?" he demanded of one of the other cooks.

Most of the other protesters gave up without much of a struggle. A "Vous n'avez pas de steak haché?" was met with "Set the bets!" and that was that. A request made in German was met with "Man, why don't you get your hair cut?"

A few succeeded at ordering. The other French speaker did somehow get a sandwich, although with onions when he had requested sans. One "Quiero fritas con queso" did result in cheese fries — but for $7. The list price was $3.50. "Seven fucking dollars!" the girl, Virginia, muttered in disgust. But she took the fries.