“Well, then, Vefours, Very’s, the Cafe Anglais?”

“Vefours is traditional; the Cafe Anglais is infested with English; and at Very’s, which is otherwise a meritorious establishment, one’s digestion is disturbed by the sight of omnivorous provincials, who drink champagne with the roti, and eat melon at dessert.”

Dalrymple laughed outright.

“At this rate,” said he, “we shall get no dinner at all!  What is to become of us, if neither Very’s, nor the Trois Freres, nor the Moulin Rouge, nor the Maison Doree....”

“Halte-la!" interrupted the student, theatrically; “for by my halidom, sirs, I said not a syllable in disparagement of the house yelept Doree!  Is it not there that we eat of the crab of Bordeaux, succulent and roseate?  Is it not there that we drink of Veuve Cliquot the costly, and of that Johannisberger, to which all other hocks are vinegar and water?  Never let it be said that Franz Mueller, being of sound mind and body, did less than justice to the reputation of the Maison Doree.”

“To the Maison Doree, then,” said Dalrymple, “with what speed and appetite we may!  By Jove!  Herr Franz, you are a connoisseur in the matter of dining.”

“A man who for twenty-nine days out of every thirty pays his sixty-five centimes for two dishes at a student’s Restaurant in the Quartier Latin, knows better than most people where to go for a good dinner when he has the chance,” said Mueller, philosophically.  “The ragouts of the Temple—­the arlequins of the Cite—­the fried fish of the Odeon arcades—­the unknown hashes of the guingettes, and the ’funeral baked meats’ of the Palais Royal, are all familiar to my pocket and my palate.  I do not scruple to confess that in cases of desperate emergency, I have even availed myself of the advantages of Le hasard.”

“Le hasard.” said I.  “What is that?”

“Le hasard de la fourchette,” replied the student, “is the resort of the vagabond, the gamin, and the chiffonier.  It lies down by the river-side, near the Halles, and consists of nothing but a shed, a fire, and a caldron.  In this caldron a seething sea of oleaginous liquid conceals an infinite variety of animal and vegetable substances.  The arrangements of the establishment are beautifully simple.  The votary pays his five centimes and is armed by the presiding genius of the place with a huge two-pronged iron fork.  This fork he plunges in once;—­he may get a calf’s foot, or a potato, or a sheep’s head, or a carrot, or a cabbage, or nothing, as fate and the fork direct.  All men are gamblers in some way or another, and Le hasard is a game of gastronomic chance.  But from the ridiculous to the sublime, it is but a step—­and while talking of Le hasard behold, we have arrived at the Maison Doree.”

CHAPTER XIX.