34 



STRAY -AW AYS 



who have chanced to perceive AngeHquc preparing 

 a plate for prunes and cream by sousing it and its 

 grisly remnants of beefsteak in a vat behind the 

 kitchen door. If one wishes to dine with a quiet 

 mind for anything under two francs it is better not 

 to have glimpses of the machinery; better to sit 

 down in a corner where none such are possible, and 

 to fix one's attention on the little wooden spade that 

 holds the menu. Its handle feels greasy; so, for the 



MONSIEUR OF THE CREMERIE 



matter of that, does the handle of the knife, but it is 

 only the new-comer who finds such things remarkable. 

 Round the other tables there is a spasmodic prattle 

 of English and American female voices, spasmodic 

 because subordinate to the earnest consumption of 

 the cremerie^s inevitable beefsteak and mutton chops ; 

 but the studio " still lisps out in all they utter," the 

 place to buy canvases, the iniquities of the model, 

 legends of those artists whose dismal duty it is to 

 pass judgment weekly on the works of the speakers ; 

 these, and much more, interspersed with calls for 



