You stroll into the little gaslit room (enamelled in white and decorated with tables set in the simplest fashion, yet clean and sufficient) as though you are dropping in at the Savoy or Dieudonne's. It is rhomboidal in shape, with many angles, as though perspective had suddenly gone mad. Each table is set with a spoon, a knife, a fork, a serviette, a basket of French bread, and a jar of French mustard. If you are in spendthrift mood, you may send the boy for a bottle of _vin ordinaire_, which costs tenpence; on more sober occasions you send him for beer. There is no menu on the table; the waiter or, more usually, in these smaller places, the waitress explains things to you as you go along. Each course carries two dishes, _au choix_. There are no _hors d'oeuvres_; you dash gaily into the soup. The tureen is brought to the table, and you have as many goes as you please. Hot water, flavoured with potato and garnished with a yard of bread, makes an excellent lining for a hollow stomach. This is followed by omelette or fish. Of the two evils you choose the less, and cry "Omelette!" When the omelette is thrown in front of you it at once makes its presence felt. It recalls Bill Nye's beautiful story about an introspective egg laid by a morbid hen. However, if you smother the omelette in salt, red pepper, and mustard, you will be able to deal with it. I fear I cannot say as much for the fish. Then follows the inevitable chicken and salad, or perhaps Vienna steak, or _vol-au-vent_. The next item is Camembert or fruit, and coffee concludes the display. Dining in these places is not a matter of subdued murmurs, of conversation in dulcet tones, or soft strains from the band. Rather you seem to dine in a menagerie. It is a bombardment more than a meal. The air buckles and cracks with noise. The first outbreak of hostilities comes from the counter at the entry of the first guest. The moment he is seated the waitress screams, "Un potage--un!" The large Monsieur, the proprietor, at the counter, bellows down the tube, "Un POTAGE--Un!" Away in subterranean regions an ear catches it, and a distant voice chants "_Potage_!" And then from the far reaches of the kitchen you hear a smothered tenor, as coming from the throat of one drowned in the soup-kettle, "P o t a g e!" As the customers crowd in the din increases. Everywhere there is noise; as a result the customers must shout their conversation. As the volume of conversation increases the counter, finding itself hard-pressed, brings up its heavy artillery.