Part 27 (2/2)

By this time we were half-way to Paris, and the student, satisfied with his success, packed up his folio, brought out a great meerschaum with a snaky tube, and smoked like a factory-chimney.

When we alighted, it was nearly five o'clock.

”What shall we do next?” said Dalrymple, pulling drearily at his moustache. ”I am so deuced dull to-day that I am ashamed to ask anybody to do me the charity to dine with me--especially a _bon garcon_ like Herr Muller.”

”Don't be ashamed,” said the student, laughingly, ”I would dine with Pluto himself, if the dishes were good and my appet.i.te as sharp as to-day.”

”_Allons_, then! Where shall we go; to the _Trois Freres_, or the _Moulin Rouge_, or the _Maison Doree_?”

”The _Trois Freres_” said Muller, with the air of one who deliberates on the fate of nations, ”has the disadvantage of being situated in the Palais Royal, where the band still continues to play at half-past five every afternoon. Now, music should come on with the sweets and the champagne. It is not appropriate with soup or fish, and it distracts one's attention if injudiciously administered with the made dishes,”

”True. Then shall we try the _Moulin Rouge_?”

Muller shook his head.

”At the _Moulin Rouge_” said he, gravely, ”one can breakfast well; but their dinners are stereotyped. For the last ten years they have not added a new dish to their _carte_; and the discovery of a new dish, says Brillat Savarin, is of more importance to the human race than the discovery of a new planet. No--I should not vote for the _Moulin Rouge_.”

”Well, then, Vefours, Very's, the Cafe Anglais?”

”Vefours is traditional; the Cafe Anglais is infested with English; and at Very's, which is otherwise a meritorious establishment, one's digestion is disturbed by the sight of omnivorous provincials, who drink champagne with the _roti_, and eat melon at dessert.”

Dalrymple laughed outright.

”At this rate,” said he, ”we shall get no dinner at all! What is to become of us, if neither Very's, nor the _Trois Freres_, nor the _Moulin Rouge_, nor the _Maison Doree_....”

”_Halte-la!”_ interrupted the student, theatrically; ”for by my halidom, sirs, I said not a syllable in disparagement of the house yelept Doree!

Is it not there that we eat of the crab of Bordeaux, succulent and roseate? Is it not there that we drink of Veuve Cliquot the costly, and of that Johannisberger, to which all other hocks are vinegar and water?

Never let it be said that Franz Muller, being of sound mind and body, did less than justice to the reputation of the _Maison Doree_.”

”To the _Maison Doree_, then,” said Dalrymple, ”with what speed and appet.i.te we may! By Jove! Herr Franz, you are a _connoisseur_ in the matter of dining.”

”A man who for twenty-nine days out of every thirty pays his sixty-five centimes for two dishes at a student's Restaurant in the Quartier Latin, knows better than most people where to go for a good dinner when he has the chance,” said Muller, philosophically. ”The ragouts of the Temple--the _arlequins_ of the _Cite_--the fried fish of the Odeon arcades--the unknown hashes of the _guingettes_, and the 'funeral baked meats' of the Palais Royal, are all familiar to my pocket and my palate.

I do not scruple to confess that in cases of desperate emergency, I have even availed myself of the advantages of _Le hasard_.”

”_Le hasard_.” said I. ”What is that?”

”_Le hasard de la fourchette_,” replied the student, ”is the resort of the vagabond, the _gamin_, and the _chiffonier_. It lies down by the river-side, near the Halles, and consists of nothing but a shed, a fire, and a caldron. In this caldron a seething sea of oleaginous liquid conceals an infinite variety of animal and vegetable substances. The arrangements of the establishment are beautifully simple. The votary pays his five centimes and is armed by the presiding genius of the place with a huge two-p.r.o.nged iron fork. This fork he plunges in once;--he may get a calf's foot, or a potato, or a sheep's head, or a carrot, or a cabbage, or nothing, as fate and the fork direct. All men are gamblers in some way or another, and _Le hasard_ is a game of gastronomic chance.

But from the ridiculous to the sublime, it is but a step--and while talking of _Le hasard_ behold, we have arrived at the _Maison Doree_.”

CHAPTER XIX.

A DINNER AT THE MAISON DOReE AND AN EVENING PARTY IN THE QUARTIER LATIN.

The most genial of companions was our new acquaintance, Franz Muller, the art-student. Light-hearted, buoyant, una.s.suming, he gave his animal spirits full play, and was the life of our little dinner. He had more natural gayety than generally belongs to the German character, and his good-temper was inexhaustible. He enjoyed everything; he made the best of everything; he saw food for laughter in everything. He was always amused, and therefore was always amusing. Above all, there was a spontaneity in his mirth which acted upon others as a perpetual stimulant. He was in short, what the French call a _bon garcon_, and the English a capital fellow; easy without a.s.surance, comic without vulgarity, and, as Sydney Smith wittily hath it--”a great number of other things without a great number of other things.”

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