"A very polite lieutenant-waiter, with a sergeant-waiter and two corporal-waiters, greeted us and we gave the countersign, 'Abandon wealth, all ye who enter here.'
"Then the lieutenant-waiter and his army corps deployed by columns of four and escorted us to the most expensive looking trough I ever saw in a dining-room.
"'Peaches,' I said to my wife, 'I'm doing this to please you, but after I pay the check, it's me to file a petition in bankruptcy.'
"But she only grinned, picked up the point-lace napkin and began to admire the onyx furniture.
"'Que souhaitez vous?' said the waiter, bowing so low that I could feel a chill running through my little bank account.
"'I guess he means you,' I whispered to Peaches, but she looked very solemnly at the menu card and began to bite her lips.
"'Je suis tout a votre service,' the waiter cross-countered before I could recover, and he had me gasping. It never struck me that I had to take a course in French before entering the St. Regis hunger foundry, and there I sat making funny faces at the tablecloth, while my wife blushed crimson and the waiter kept on bowing like an animated jack-knife.
"'Say, Mike!' I ventured after a bit; 'tip us off to a quiet bunch of eating that will fit a couple of appetites just out seeing the sights. Nothing that will put a kink in a year's income, you know, Beau; just suggest some little thing that looks better than it tastes, but is not too expensive to keep down.'
"'Oui, oui!' His Marseillaise came back at me, 'un diner confortable doit se composer de potage, de volaille bouillie ou rotie, chaude ou froide, de gibier, de plats rares et distingues, de poissons, de sucreries, de patisseries et de fruits!'
"I looked at my wife, she looked at me, then we both looked out the window and wished we had never been born.