The room that the boy entered was in keeping with the rest of the house—­old-fashioned and in ill-repair.  The floor was devoid of covering, the ceiling low, the only furniture a dozen small tables meagrely set out for dejeuner.  On the moment of his entry eleven of these tables were unoccupied, but at the twelfth an eager young waiter attended upon a stout provincial Frenchwoman who was partaking heartily of a pungently smelling stew.

On the opening of the door the waiter glanced round in strained anticipation, and the lady of the stew looked up and bowed a greeting to the new-comer.

It struck the boy as curious—­this welcome from a total stranger, but it woke anew the pleasant warmth, the agreeable sense of friendliness.  With the tingling sensation of doing a daring deed, he glanced round the empty room, scanned the two long windows on which the cold, bright sun played laughingly, and through which the rattle and hum of the rue de Dunkerque penetrated like an exhilarating accompaniment, then, he walked straight to the table of the lady, smiled and, in his own turn, bowed.

’Would madame permit him to sit at her table?  It was sad to be alone upon so fine a morning.’

A woman of any other nationality might have looked at him askance; but madame was French.  She was fifty years of age, she was fat, she was ugly—­but she was French.  The sense of a pleasant encounter—­the appreciation of romance was in her blood.  She smiled at the debonair boy with as agreeable a self-consciousness as though she had been a young girl.

‘But certainly, if monsieur desired.  The pleasure was for her.’

Again an interchange of bows and smiles, sympathetically repeated by the interested young waiter.  Then the boy, laying his hat and coat aside, seated himself at the table and entered upon the business of the hour, while madame became tactfully absorbed in her odoriferous stew.

‘What did monsieur desire?’ The waiter stood anxiously attentive, his head inclining gravely to one side, his dirty napkin swinging from his left hand.

The boy glanced up.

‘What could the Hotel Railleux offer?’

The waiter met his eye steadfastly.  ’Anything that monsieur cared to order.’

The boy encountered the steadfast look, and a little gleam of humor shot into his eyes.

‘Well, then, to begin with, should they say Sole Waleska?’

The waiter’s glance wavered, he threw the weight of his body from one foot to the other.  Involuntarily madame looked up.

The boy buried himself behind an expression of profound seriousness.

“Yes! Sole Waleska!  Or, perhaps, Coulibiac a la Russe!"

The waiter’s mouth opened in a desperate resolve to meet the worst.  Madame’s eyes discreetly sought her plate.

The boy threw back his head and laughed aloud at his own small jest.  “Bring me two eggs en cocotte,” he substituted, and laughed again in sheer pleasure at the waiter’s sudden smile, his sudden restoration to dignity, as he hurried away to put a seal upon an order that permitted the hotel to retain its self-respect.