The wine merchants of the Halles des Vins could swear that, fine frocks or no fine frocks, Frederic deserves a place in any chapter devoted to the fine art of dining; for Frederic belongs to a school of cooking which made the cuisine a fine art, and if the rooms of the little tavern down behind the morgue offer no appeal to the senses in the form of music and flowers and jewels and chiffons, they offer eating and drinking good enough to offset many omissions.
The Tour d'Argent has been a restaurant for three hundred years, and looking out from its windows over the cité patrons have been able to see most of the great events of Paris taking place, but M. Frederic is considerably less old than his café.
The Halles des Vins stand only a little way below the restaurant, and the wine merchants learned to go to Frederic's for luncheon. They were a high-living, exacting group of gourmets, patrons to appreciate good cooking and put a cook upon his mettle. Incidentally they knew a thing or two about wines, and through their friendly advice and favour the cellars of Frederic became, in the opinion of many connoisseurs, the best in Paris.
Others beside the wine-merchants found their way to the sign of the silver tower. The fame of Frederic spread through Paris and beyond. Last year in Nice, a New York man asked the chef of a noted hotel to prepare for him a "canneton à la presse." "Cook it for me just as Frederic does it," said the American. The chef shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and shook his head.
"I shall be charmed to cook the duck for Monsieur, but to cook it as le Roi des Canards cooks it?—Non, I have not the skill."
Tribute from a rival is tribute indeed. Frederic is King of the Ducks, and he sits alone upon his throne.
You will probably find the king in the little ante-room to his restaurant if you go down to the Tour d'Argent early enough to have a talk with its autocrat. There in the little ante-room are displayed game, meats, delicacies, dozens of things a patron might like to order for his meal, and there stands Frederic, a typical French host, with his long grey frock-coat clinging lovingly to his portly body, his side whiskers framing his ruddy, beaming face, his napkin or towel over his arm.
If he has seen you before he will know you. If he has seen you twice, you and he are old friends.
His face takes on more luminous cheer as he catches sight of you, and he bows profoundly, with a dramatic flourish of the napkin.