At the far end of the Bois de Vincennes, near the Saint-Mandé boundary of the park, is to be found, standing among trees, a restaurant of quite a rural aspect, and bearing the significant name of The Orange Blossom. Within are a number of vast rooms and outside in the gardens arbours of the like ample proportions. It is here in fact that the democracy resorts to make merry on the occasion of weddings after the religious or civil ceremonies, sometimes one, sometimes the other, occasionally both, have
been rapidly despatched.
This morning evidently the landlord of The Orange Blossom was not expecting any great number of customers, for he had thrown open only the smallest of his salons. In the middle of the room he was laying the table for a very limited number of guests:
“Scurvy devils!” he was grumbling to himself, “what’s the good of folks who ask only the marriage witnesses to the breakfast—skinflints surely! True they’ve paid in advance without any bargaining much, still in my humble opinion we’d best keep a sharp eye lifting to see they don’t pocket the spoons; mostly indeed I keep the silver locked up. A breakfast for six at six francs a head, that don’t come to a couple of louis. However, let’s hope we’ll make it up on the drinks and cigars.”
The good man stopped in his work; someone had entered the room and was coming towards him.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but are you the landlord of The Orange Blossom?”
The innkeeper turned to his questioner and looked him up and down disdainfully. The newcomer was not of a distinguished appearance—middle-class evidently, soberly dressed in black, a man of thirty or thereabouts, wearing a very heavy beard.
“What do you want?” he asked him.
“Sir,” asked the stranger in return, “are you by way of engaging waiters?”
“Certainly not,” was the uncompromising answer, “and least of all to-day; why, there’s nothing to do—a meal for six at six francs a head—I and the maidservant will be amply sufficient to wait.”