the best sauce; and, homely as was the fare, I never made a heartier meal. Somewhat recruited in strength, I rose to take leave, having first requested my brave old entertainer to accept payment, which he declared impossible. However, I had now been long enough on Gallic ground to understand the _idiom_, so laid my "legal tender" on the table, and said farewell, with many thanks. He tottled with me to the door; then, suddenly stopped me, and looked earnestly in my face, as if he had something very particular to communicate. What was he going to say? He begged to assure me I had laid him under an infinite obligation. Again he arrested my progress, with the door in his hand. Hoped I would honour his menage with a second visit. Admired the brave English, and lamented that he had never had the pleasure of meeting them professionally. "_Peut-être encore! Mais hélas! nous sommes les f--s!_" Halted me a third time outside. "His cottage was mine, with all that it contained." He had marched through half Europe, and was a simple-hearted, civil, old Frenchman. There was one circumstance, though, not a little to the advantage of those who dined with Gingham or Capsicum; and this was, that there arose between these two worthies an amicable rivalry on this very affair of giving dinners. The contest, in fact, had its origin a year before, on our voyage from Falmouth to Lisbon, when Capsicum brewed a bowl of punch, and Gingham brewed a better. Capsicum could not brook the idea that any man should brew punch, or give dinners, equal to his. The style of the two entertainers was different. Capsicum's dinners were more profuse, Gingham's more _recherchés_. Gingham, in fact, had all the appliances of the table in greater perfection. He had plate enough for a handsome dinner--mind, I don't mean to say a state dinner--of eight or ten. His whole dinner-service, too, was handsome, elegant; wines, the choicest that money could command; all the little etceteras excellent--coffee, for instance; such coffee as you could not get elsewhere in France, where they are too apt to make a mess of it. I don't think much of French coffee, except such as you get here and there at private houses. Gingham's coffee was a pure, genial, high-flavoured decoction. Ah! you tasted the berry. As summer came on, Gingham intended ices. And good fish, till we arrived at Bordeaux, being next to unattainable, he had organised a plan for procuring salmon in ice from England. Capsicum, on the other hand, had resources which Gingham had not. He could always command the best cut of the best commissariat beef; and this advantage told with stunning effect when he gave a spread. He had other advantages in foraging, and he knew how to turn them to account. In short, the characteristic of his dinners was abundance; and, with the guests who partook of them on actual service, this would generally secure the preference.