“By calculation of the tall cost of living, and by buying what is good instead of what is expensive.”
“What do you mean, Gaspard?”
Gaspard contemplated her for a moment.
“We have had this week—squab chicken,” he said, “racks of little unseasonable lambs, sweetbreads, guinea fowl and filet du boeuf. We have with them mushrooms, fresh string bean, cooked endive, and new, not very good peas grown in glass. We have the salted nuts, the radish, the olive, the celery, the bon bon, all extra without pay. Then you make in addition to this the health foods, and your bills are sky high up. Is it not?”
“I’m afraid it is, Gaspard. I had no idea I was as reckless as all that.”
“But yes, and more of it.”
“What would you do if you were running this restaurant, Gaspard?”
“I would give ragoût, and rabbits—so cheap and so good too—stewed in red wine, and the 224 good pot roast with vegetables all in the delicious sauce, and carrots with parsley and the peas out of the can, cooked with onion and lettuce, and macédoine of all the other things left over. Lentils and flageolet I should buy dried up, and soak them out.—All those things which you have said were needless.—In my way they would be so excellent.”
“You make my mouth water, Gaspard. I don’t know whether it’s a Gallic eloquence, or whether that food really would work. They might like it for a change anyhow.”
“I have many personal patrons now,” Gaspard said with some pride; “all day they send me messages, and very good tips. I think what I would serve them they would eat.—But there is one thing—” he paused and hesitated dejectedly, “that, what you say, takes the heart out of the beautiful cooking.”