No one else seemed to be eating. Perhaps French people dined later than this. The menu was as much an enigma as she had expected. It was written in a flowing Spencerian hand, in dim violet ink on a limp and food-stained bit of paper. Hardly a word seemed legible, and none of it was intelligible. “Goodness,” murmured Cynthia, and looked about her. Could she get up and leave, and try another place? But the waiter had already placed a napkin beside her, fork and knife beside the napkin. Cynthia decided she hadn’t the moral courage to rise and depart. Well, here goes! “Bring me some of that, and that, and that,” she directed and pointed near the center of the page. The main body of a meal always came near the middle of the menu, didn’t it? The waiter, who wore a spotty black dinner jacket and a white apron, broke into a voluble explanation of some sort. Evidently they were out of this, would mademoiselle not prefer that? Mademoiselle nodded in agreement. Yes, anything. _Oui, oui, oui!_ The waiter departed on swift feet. Cynthia wondered what he would bring. What he brought was a strange piece of pink meat swimming in a cold bath of oil. This she poked about with a fork, wondering what particular portion of what animal it might be. It hardly seemed edible, and certainly though she was hungry, she was not yet hungry enough for that. After a long time the waiter seemed to appreciate that she had finished with that course, and brought her some hot boiled potatoes. These were more palatable. And bread helped too. Then came a small white something wrapped in tin foil, and served with a large salt shaker. But the foil proved to contain a small roll of really delicious cream cheese, and eaten with sugar, which came from the large salt shaker, and more of the crisp French bread. It served to round off the simple meal. “I suppose I have eaten,” thought Cynthia as she wandered home again. “I wish I weren’t still so hungry. At least that meal was cheap, and that’s important at the moment.” But she continued to think of hot beefsteaks, and hot muffins, and hot chicken pies, and what she wouldn’t do to a big plate of ham and eggs. ... Oh dear! But tomorrow she’d try another place. Perhaps that wasn’t a really good example of French cooking. As she strolled slowly back towards the hotel all the little bands were going full force. Cynthia noticed that people were beginning to dance, under the lights, on the hard cobbled pavements to the jiggling, monotonous tunes. She leaned for a while against the closed iron shutter of a shop, and watched the gay crowds gather. They seemed very happy. Was it some celebration, she wondered, or did French people always dance like this in the evening? The musicians beneath her window were in fine fettle, tootling, sawing, and bumping away at no particular tune, but just a sort of penny whistle noise with a strongly marked rhythm for the dancers.