It was really alarming to see the quantity that some of the Bretons managed to appropriate in an incredibly short space of time at the table d’hote.  H.C., who was accustomed to the aesthetic table of his aunt, Lady Maria, more than once had to retire to his room, and recover his composure, and wonder whether his own appetite would ever return to him.  And once or twice when I unfeelingly drew attention to an opposite neighbour and wondered what Lady Maria would say to it, he could only reply by a dismal groan which caused the opposite neighbour for a moment to arrest his mission of destruction and stare.

On the second occasion that it happened he called up the head waitress—­they were all women who served in the room—­and asked her if the “Monsieur Anglais vis-a-vis” was not ill.

“He looks pale and thin,” he added, feelingly, and might well think so, placed in juxtaposition with himself, for he was large and round, with cheeks, as Tony Lumpkin would have said, broad and red as a pulpit cushion.  It was simply cause and effect.

In his case, too, the cause was not confined to eating.  Two bottles of the white wine, supplied gratis in unlimited quantities at the table d’hote disappeared during the repast; and we began to think of Mr. Weller senior, the tea-party, and the effect of the unlimited cups upon Mr. Stiggins.  “I come from Quimper,” we heard the Breton say on one occasion to his next-door neighbour, “and I think it the best town in France, not excepting Paris.  Where do you come from?”

“From Rouen,” replied the neighbour, a far more refined specimen of humanity, who spoke in quiet tones.  “I am not a Breton.”

“So much the worse for you,” returned our modern Daniel Lambert unceremoniously.  “The French would beat the world, and the Bretons would beat the French.  Then I suppose you don’t deal in horses?”

“No,” with an amused smile.  “I am only a humble architect.”  But we discovered afterwards that he was celebrated all over France.  Travelling, no less than adversity, makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows.

The head waitress was a very interesting character, much older than the other waitresses, whom she took under her wing with a species of hen-like protection, keeping them well up to their duties, and rating them soundly where they failed.  She was a Bretonne, but of the better type, with sharp, clearly-cut features, and eyes full of vivacity, that seemed in all places at once.  She wore list shoes, and would flit like a phantom from one end of the room to the other, her cap-strings flying behind her, directing, surveying all.  Very independent, too, was she, and evidently held certain of her guests in sovereign contempt.

“This terrible fair!” she would say, “which lasts three days, and gives us no rest and no peace; and one or two of those terrible dealers, who have a greater appetite than their own cattle, and would eat from six o’clock until midnight, if one only let them!  Monsieur Hellard loses pretty well by some of them; I am sure of it!”