V MADAME BONNE 275 



it seemed as if the town had been erected in a 

 squalid jumble around the bowed old woman who 

 sits hugging her chestnut roaster at the end of the 

 Pont Marguet. It was the crowded masts — or 

 was it the lonely steam syrens? — that made us 

 breathe quicker and step out. So much adventur- 

 ing forth, so many hopes, are stored up in a 

 harbour. 



Cheap meals are dearer in Boulogne than 

 in Paris. We could find nothing less than 

 'Dejeuner et Diner a 2fr. 25.' Where w^ere 

 the 'Diners a ifr. 15 et ifr. 25' of the Latin 

 Quarter? After much peeping through steamy 

 windows, we turned into the restaurant of one 

 Madame Bonne, who advertised dinner in a grande 

 salle a manger upstairs at the 2fr. 25. 



(Jim grew^ quite fond of Madame Bonne. 'We 

 fed chez Madame Bun's,' and 'JFe, we!' were the 

 two phrases he took home to his wife; just to 

 show we had really been among the Frenchies.) 



Madame was laying her own dinner at one of 

 the little tables beside her zinc bar. We begged, 

 therefore, to be excused the grande salle a manger', 

 to be given instead a fry of fish and a salad down- 

 stairs. Immediately after us there entered the bar 

 a thin, pimpled, sallow, lithe, shabby-smart young 



