My master did not stay in this eating-place, which I learned afterward was for all the people in the building. He passed through a long corridor, went down some steps, along a covered walk—all this was glassed in—and to the top of a lower building. Indeed, it seemed to me that we were passing over the tops of many buildings and I found out afterward that this was correct. Mr. Granton—for this was my master’s name—and some other men had acquired the right to build on the tops of the sky-scrapers, and here they had an agreeable promenade in fresh air, and away from the dust of the street. At last we entered a pretty little café, furnished in Louis something-or-other style. Well, attached to this dainty little café with its mirrors, and spindle-legged tables and chairs, was a tiny, formal rose garden with real flowers and gravel walks.
The whole thing reminded me of Paris, and I soon found out that it was a French restaurant, and that my master, who had been partly educated in France, loved the French people.
He had his lunch at a small table by himself, drawn up close to the entrance of the garden, and I sat under his chair, and inhaled the perfume of the roses, and gazed at the pretty thing with ecstasy. It was enclosed by lattice work entwined with green leaves, and all round the lattice work ran a deep bed of flowering roses. On looking closely, I found that they were in pots sunk in trenches. However, the effect was of a regular out-of-door flowering garden. In the middle was a round bed with a pink rambler climbing round a sun-dial. In one corner was a baby pergola with another climber embracing it, and at the top of the pergola a tiny little bird-box, out of which frequently stepped a wee yellow canary. He had a box of seeds fastened to the pergola, and when he wanted a drink, he went to a tiny fountain in one corner of the garden.
While my master was eating, this little bird sang to him, but did not offer to come near him. It was not afraid of him, for Mr. Canary regarded the garden as his home. Neither was he afraid of me, knowing he had wings, and then, though he was only a mite of a creature, he knew my attitude was not threatening.
He had a little mate among the roses, but she did not come out—merely peeped at us.
Master had rather a dainty lunch for such a big man. Mine was dainty too—a little too dainty for a medium-sized dog—for Monsieur Canovel, who ran the café, had a Frenchman’s frugal ways. However, the garçon sneaked me a few extras. These foreigners that come round, smirking and bowing, and hoping that everything is to monsieur’s liking, are really not as satisfactory as Americans, who apparently scarcely glance at their patrons, yet if a prominent one brings in a dog, say, “Waiter, give him a plateful.”
I love to run over the names of things to eat. Even the sound is appetising, so I will say that master had bouillon and vegetables served separately, and then French stew, and a dish which smelt like those delicious things made of hard crusts of bread, which poor children pick out of the gutters in Paris and sell to the restaurants, where they are washed and ground and made into little pies.
Nobody saves crusts in this country. We Americans, dogs and human beings, are too extravagant. A French dog could live on the discards from my table.
After master had his lunch, he strolled about the gravelled walks of the tiny garden that was not much bigger than Gringo’s yard, for only twenty-five men use this pretty place. He did not smoke, he whistled to the canary, who knew him, and got angry when master picked a rose from his pergola and put it in his buttonhole.