“Hóla! Yank,” he shouted, “are you coming for breakfas’?”
“Busted!” I answered, shortly.
“Con̄o, me too,” he returned; “come along.”
He led the way round the vieux port and far out along the beach by a steep road. In that section of Marseilles known as les catalans, once the home of Dumas’ Monte Cristo, we joined a crowd before a granite building above the entrance of which was a sign reading, “Bouchée de Pain.” When the door opened we filed through an anteroom where a man handed each of us a wedge of bread, de deuxieme qualité, from several bushel baskets of similar wedges, and we passed silently on into an adjoining room. The two rough tables it contained were each garnished with a jar of water, which, as we ate our bread, passed from hand to hand. On the walls hung copies of the rules governing the Bouchée de Pain, and in various parts of the room stood officials who strove to enforce them to the letter. The important ones were as follows:
“1. No talking is allowed in the Bouchée de Pain.
“2. The bread must be eaten at the tables and not carried away.
“3. Anyone bringing other food into the Bouchée de Pain to eat with his bread will be summarily ejected.
“4. Bread will be served daily at ten and at three to those who do not forfeit their right to the kind charity of the city of Marseilles by disobeying these rules.”