not by the job. On a piecework contract he would starve to death. And a third reason was that all through the country the peasants, by request of the Government, were slaughtering their surplus beeves and sheep and swine, so there might be more forage for the army horses and more grain available for the flour rations of the soldiers.

In Paris the bread was indifferently poor. An individual was restricted to one medium-sized roll of bread at a meal. Butter was not by any means abundant, and of sugar there was none to be had at all unless the traveller had bethought him to slip a supply into the country with him. The bulk of the milk supply was requisitioned for babies and invalids and disabled soldiers. Cakes or pastries in any form were absolutely prohibited in the public eating places, and, I think, in private homes as well. But of beef and mutton and veal and fowls, and the various products of the humble but widely versatile pig, there was no end, provided you had the inclination plus the price.

And so, though the lack of sugar in one's food gave one an almost constant craving for something sweet—and incidentally insured a host of friends for anybody who came along with a box of American candy under his arm or a few cakes of sweet chocolate in his pocket—one might take his choice of a wide diversity of fare at any restaurant of the first or second class, and keep well stayed.

In connection with the Paris restaurants I made a most interesting discovery, which was that when France called up her available man power at the time of the great mobilisation, the military heads somehow overlooked one group who, for their sins, should have been sent up where bullets and Huns were thickest. The slum gave up its Apache—and a 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 cold dishes. Right in the middle of the array was one of the largest lobsters I ever saw, reposing on a couch of water cress and seaweed, arranged upon a serviette. He made an impressive sight as he lay there prone upon his stomach, fidgeting his feelers in a petulant way.

We two took seats near by. At once the silent signal was given signifying, in the cipher code, "Americans in the house!" And the maître d'hôtel came to where he rested and, grasping him firmly just back of the armpits, picked him up and brought him over to us and invited us to consider his merits. When we had singly and together declined to consider the proposition of eating him in each of the three languages we knew—namely, English, bad French, and profane—the master sorrowfully returned him to his bed.

Presently two other Americans entered and immediately after them a party of English officers, and then some more Americans. Each time the boss would gather up the lobster and personally introduce him to the newcomers, just as he had done in our case, by poking the monster under their noses and making him wriggle to show that he was really alive and not operated by clockwork, and enthusiastically dilating upon his superior attractions, which, he assured them, would be enormously enhanced if only messieurs would agree forthwith to partake of him in a broiled state. But there were no takers; and so back