This you take in the early morning almost alone in the winter-garden looking on the courtyard. The matutinal _femme de chambre_ is frequent and busy about the place. The call for hot water and for grub in the rooms is insistent. If you want to be called early and to shave, you write up on the blackboard in the bureau the formula: 31 (_no. de chambre_)--5-1/2--_e.c._ (_eau chaude_)--_entrez_; that is, let the damsel enter without knocking. And enter she does with the steaming jug; and, with a charming frankness, wakens you by the shoulder, and, if not abnormally busy (and she's seldom too busy for that), sits on the edge of the bed with her shining morning face, telling you sweetly the quality of the weather, and that it's time you were out, until satisfied you are on the way to uprising, as distinct from turning over again. And morning greetings of the most refreshing sort have been known to be exchanged thus over the edge of the bed. One of the satisfactions of such an exchange (though not necessarily the chief) would be that you know the sweet creature associates nothing sordid with the greeting--even though this is a bedroom and you're in your 'jamas. An English maid in the circumstances would probably begin with a hostile shriek, and end by relating to the manager how a base and licentious soldier had made violent overtures to her; and you would suffer ejection with ignomy. And so the French (and especially the French women) score in morality at every turn. You see nothing of the hotel all morning. But on returning for lunch your _chambre_ is "done" with a taste and thoroughness that delight, and drive you to register a vow you'll never more be guilty of untidiness. British officers in France have a reputation for hoggishly littering their rooms that requires a lot of redeeming. But the French maid is not dismayed. She returns to the attack daily, with a pride in her art which no piggery can dissipate. Luncheon has the light touch that's the prime charm of French cooking. There's endless variety without heaviness or monotony: a whiff of _hors d'œuvre_, a taste of fish, a couple of "made" dishes (made well), a scrap of delicious cold-meat, salads, fruits (who shall do justice to the fruits of Normandy in June?--her strawberries, peaches, plums, grapes, melons, and cherries), _crême_, cheeses, biscuits, _cidre_ and coffee. Then you hear a barbarous Captain beside you blaspheming: "The first thing I'll do when I get leave is to go to the Savoy and have a decent English feed. I can't stick this French grub!" This is the sort of man that ought to be suppressed by the State and debarred from going abroad. It's with justice that the French taunt us with our English "heaviness"--heaviness in eating, in drinking, thinking, and doing. One of the privileges of being in France is that of eating what the French alone know how to prepare.