CALAIS ROY At. 459 



laid becaufe the Hotel d'Angleterre et de Ruffic, where 

 I iive, is only about a hundred paces diftant. By this 

 means I have been able to gain a thorough knowledge 

 of his houfekeeping ; and a circumftantial account o£ 

 it cannot fail of being novel and agreeable to you. 



The fcite of his houfe takes up three arcades, with 

 the cellaring and the firft, fecond, and third ftories 

 over -them. The chief hall is under the arcades, at 

 lean: ten paces wide and thirty in length. Along both 

 fides . ftand tables at a proper diflance afunder, and 

 down the middle runs another row. The tables are no 

 bigger than for two perfons to eat at them. They are 

 not covered with linen, but have a green wax-cloth 

 thrown over them, which may very eafily be kept clean. 

 The not covering them with linen, makes an annual 

 faving to the proprietor, as he told me, of 9948 livres, 

 excluilve of the capital requifite for the purchafe of the 

 table-linen. Were he once to lay the cloth on them, 

 they muft be changed fo often in the day, that there 

 would be nothing but running about from morning to 

 night for that purpofe alone. A napkin cofts two fous 

 the warning ; fo that fuppoflng them to be changed 

 only ten times every day, the wafhing alone for one 

 fingle table only for one day, would come to twenty 

 fqus, or ten-pence of our money. Now there are 

 thirty tables in the large room below alone, this then 

 would amount to five millings a day, and that in the 

 year to no lefs a fum than ninety-one pounds, five 

 millings, merely in wafhing. Do you begin to con- 

 ceive, my good friend, to what an extent this under- 

 taking may reach ? However \ we muft not let this 

 matter detain us. 



The 



