"Waiter!" he roared out at length, with all the outraged dignity of a common-councilman, "I say, waiter! For the love of goodness take this away: it's only fit for pigs. There's a dish there, with two little ducks upon it, and some carrots round 'em--French ducks I suppose they are: an Englishman might shut up shop if _he_ placed such on his table. Bring it here." "Plait-il, monsieur?" "Them ducks--there--at the top, by the pickled cowcumbers. I'll take one." The waiter ranged his perplexed eyes round and round the table. "Pardon, monsieur, plait-il?" "I think you are an idiot, I do!" roared out Mr. Dundyke, unable to keep both his hunger and his temper. "That dish of ducks, I said, and it is being seized upon! They are tearing them to pieces! they are gone! Good Heavens! are we to famish like this?" The waiter, in despair, laid hold of a slice of melon in one hand and the salt and pepper in the other, and presented them. "The man _is_ an idiot!" decided the exasperated Englishman. "What does he mean by offering me melon for dinner, and salt and pepper to season it?--that's like their putting sugar to their peas! I want something that I can eat," he cried, piteously. "Qu'est-ce que c'est que je peux vous offrir, monsieur?" asked the agonized garçon. "Don't you see we want something to eat," retorted the gentleman; "this lady and myself? We can't touch any of the trash on the table. Get us some mutton chops cooked." "Pardon, monsieur, plait-il?" "Some--mut--ton--chops," repeated the common-councilman, very deliberately, thinking that the slower he spoke, the better he should be understood. "And let 'em look sharp about it." The waiter sighed and shrugged, and, after pushing the bread and butter and young onions within reach, moved away, giving up the matter as a hopeless job. "Let's peg away at this till the chops come," cried Mr. Dundyke. And in the fallacious hope that the chops _were_ coming, did the unconscious couple "peg" away till the driver clacked his long whip, and summoned his passengers to resume their seats in the diligence. "I have had nothing to eat," screamed Mr. Dundyke. "They are doing me some mutton chops. I can't go yet." "Deux diners, quatre francs, une bouteille de vin, trente sous," said the waiter in Mr. Dundyke's ear. "Fait cinq francs, cinquante, monsieur." "Fetch my mutton chops," he implored; "we can't go without them: we can eat them in the diligence." "Allons! dépêchons-nous, messieurs et dames," interrupted the conductor, looking in, impatiently. "Prenez vos places. Nous sommes en retard." "They are swindlers, every soul of them, in this country," raved the common-councilman, passionately throwing down the money, when he could be made to comprehend its amount, and that there were no chops to come. "How dare you be so dishonest as charge for dinners we don't eat." "I am faint now for the want of something," bewailed poor Mrs. Dundyke.