So, in his carefree American way, he orders a portion
of a dish of an unspecified value; whereupon the head waiter slips
out to the office and ascertains by private inquiry how large a
letter of credit the American is carrying with him, and comes back
and charges him all the traffic will bear.
As for the keeper of a fashionable cafe on a boulevard or in the
Rue de la Paix--well, alongside of him the most rapacious restaurant
proprietor on Broadway is a kindly, Christian soul who is in
business for his health--and not feeling very healthy at that.
When you dine at one of the swagger boulevard places the head
waiter always comes, just before you have finished, and places a
display of fresh fruit before you, with a winning smile and a bow
and a gesture, which, taken together, would seem to indicate that
he is extending the compliments of the season and that the fruit
will be on the house; but never did one of the intriguing scoundrels
deceive me. Somewhere, years before, I had read statistics on the
cost of fresh fruit in a Paris restaurant, and so I had a care.
The sight of a bunch of hothouse grapes alone was sufficient to
throw me into a cold perspiration right there at the table; and
as for South African peaches, I carefully walked around them,
getting farther away all the time. A peach was just the same as
a pesthouse to me, in Paris.
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