We said we had heard so; at the same time we tried to look as if we always dined somewhere in society, but Heaven knows whether we succeeded. "The combination breakfast is a form of table d'hote; and at a very attractive restaurant in a good place I have seen such a breakfast--fruit, cereal, eggs, rolls, and coffee--offered for fifteen cents. I have never tried it, not because I had not the courage, but because I thought thirty cents cheap enough; those who do not I should still hold worthy of esteem if they ate the fifteen-cent breakfast. I have also seen placarded a 'business men's lunch' for fifteen cents, which also I have not tried; I am not a business man. I make bold to say, however, that I often go for my lunch or my dinner to a certain Italian place on a good avenue, which I will not locate more definitely lest you should think me a partner of the enterprise, for fifty and sixty cents, '_vino compreso_.' The material is excellent, and the treatment is artistic; the company of a simple and self-respectful domesticity which I think it an honor to be part of: fathers and mothers of families, aunts, cousins, uncles, grandparents. I do not deny a Merry Widow hat here and there, but the face under it, though often fair and young, is not a Merry Widow face. Those people all look as kind and harmless as the circle which I used to frequent farther down-town at a fifty-cent French table d'hote, but with a _bouillabaisse_ added which I should not, but for my actual experiences, have expected to buy for any money. But there are plenty of Italian and French tables d'hote for the same price all over town. If you venture outside of the Latin race, you pay dearer and you fare worse, unless you go to those shining halls which I have been praising. If you go to a German place, you get grosser dishes and uncouth manners for more money; I do not know why that amiable race should be so dear and rude in its feeding-places, but that is my experience." "You wander, you wander!" we exclaimed. "Why should we care for your impressions of German cooking and waiting, unless they go to prove or disprove that living in New York is cheaper than in the European capitals?"