Eating in Two or Three Languages | Page 8

magnificent fighter he is said to have made too! And the
piratical cab drivers who formerly infested the boulevards must have
answered the summons almost to a man, because only a few of them
are left nowadays, and they mainly wear markings to prove they have
served in the ranks; but by a most reprehensible error of somebody in
authority the typical head waiters of the cafés were spared. I base this
assertion upon the fact that all of them appeared to be on duty at the
time of my latest visit. If there was a single absentee from the ranks I
failed to miss him.
There they were, the same hawk-eyed banditti crew that one was
constantly encountering in the old days; and up to all the same old
tricks too--such as adding the date of the month and all the figures of
the year into the bill; and such as invariably recommending the most

expensive dishes to foreigners; and such as coming to one and bending
over one and smiling upon one and murmuring to one: "An' wot will ze
gentailman 'ave to-day?"--and then, before the gentailman can answer,
jumping right in and telling him what he is going to have, always
favouring at least three different kinds of meats for even the lightest
meal, and never less than two vegetables, and never once failing to
recommend a full bottle of the costliest wine on the premises.
Stress of war had not caused these gentry to forget or forgo a single one
of the ancient wiles that for half a century their kind has practised upon
American tourists and others who didn't care what else they did with
their money so long as they were given a chance to spend it for
something they didn't particularly want. Yep; those charged with the
responsibility of calling up the reserves certainly made a big mistake
back yonder in August of 1914. They practised discrimination in the
wrong quarter altogether. If any favouritism was to be shown they
should have taken the head waiters and left the Apaches at home.
Many's the hard battle that I had with these chaps in 1918. It never
failed--not one single, solitary time did it fail--that the functionary who
took my order first tried to tell me what my order was going to be, and
then, after a struggle, reluctantly consented to bring me the things I
wanted and insisted on having. Never once did he omit the ceremony of
impressing it upon me that he would regard it as a deep favour if only I
would be so good as to order a whole lobster. I do not think there was
anything personal in this; he recommended the lobster because lobster
was the most expensive thing he had in stock. If he could have thought
of anything more expensive than lobster he would have recommended
that.
I always refused--not that I harbour any grudge against lobsters as a
class, but because I object to being dictated to by a buccaneer with flat
feet, who wears a soiled dickey instead of a shirt, and who is only
waiting for a chance to overcharge me or short-change me, or give me
bad money, or something. If every other form of provender had failed
them the populace of Paris could have subsisted very comfortably for
several days on the lobsters I refused to buy in the course of the spring

and summer of last year. I'm sure of it.
And when I had firmly, emphatically, yea, ofttimes passionately
declined the proffered lobster, he, having with difficulty mastered his
chagrin, would seek to direct my attention to the salmon, his motive for
this change in tactics being that salmon, though apparently plentiful,
was generally the second most expensive item upon the regular menu.
Salmon as served in Paris wears a different aspect from the one
commonly worn by it when it appears upon the table here.
Over there they cut the fish through amidships, in cross-sections, and,
removing the segment of spinal column, spread the portion flat upon a
plate and serve it thus; the result greatly resembling a pair of miniature
pink horse collars. A man who knew not the salmon in his native state,
or ordering salmon in France, would get the idea that the salmon was
bowlegged and that the breast had been sold to some one else, leaving
only the hind quarters for him.
Harking back to lobsters, I am reminded of a tragedy to which I was an
eyewitness. Nearly every night for a week or more two of us dined at
the same restaurant on the Rue de Rivoli. On the occasion of our first
appearance here we were confronted as we entered by a large table
bearing all manner of special delicacies and