Antoine’s does not set up to be a regular hotel, and we stopped there because, during the carnival, all rooms in the large modern hotels across Canal Street were taken.  The carnival rush made room-service at Antoine’s a little slow, now and then; sometimes the bell would not be answered when we rang for breakfast; or again, our morning coffee and croissants would be forty minutes on the way; sometimes we became a little bit impatient—­though we could never bring ourselves to say so to such amiable servitors.  As a result, when we were leaving the city for a little trip, we determined to stay, on our return, at the Grunewald, a hotel like any one of a hundred others in the United States—­marble lobbies, gold ceilings, rathskellers, cabaret shows, dancing, and page boys wandering through the corridors and dining-rooms, calling in nasal, sing-song voices:  “Mis-ter Shoss-futt! Mis-ter Ahm-kaplopps! Mis-ter Praggle-fiss! Mis-ter Blahms!”

We did return and go to the Grunewald.  But comfortable as we were made there, we had to own to each other that we missed Antoine’s.  We missed our curious old rooms.  I even missed my chaufbain, and was bored at the commonplace matutinal performance of turning on hot water without preliminary experiments in marine engineering.  We thought wistfully of ’Genie’s patient smile, and of her daily assurance to us, when we went out, that “when she had made the apartments she would render the key to the bureau, alors,”—­which is to say, leave the key at the office.  We yearned for the cafe, for good Francois, for the deliciously flavored oysters cooked on the half-shell and served on a pan of hot rock-salt which kept them warm; for the cold tomatoes a la Jules Cesar; for the bisque of crayfish a la Cardinal; for the bouillibasse (which Thackeray admitted was as good in New Orleans as in Marseilles, and which Otis Skinner says is better); for the unrivaled gombo a la Creole, and pompano en Papillotte, and pressed duck a la Tour d’Argent, and orange Brulot, and the wonderful Cafe Brulot Diabolique—­that spiced coffee made in a silver bowl from which emerge the blue flames of burning cognac, and in honor of which the lights of the cafe are always temporarily dimmed.

Nor least of all was it that we wished to see again the mother of Jules, who sits back of the caisse and takes in the money, like many another good French wife and mother—­a tiny little old lady more than ninety-five years old, who came to New Orleans in 1840 as the bride of the then young Antoine Alciatore.

So we put on our hats and coats when evening came, and went back to Antoine’s for dinner, and as long as we were in New Orleans we kept on going back.