At last he said to the servant, slowly and solemnly: "This and that, Madeleine, cooked so and so. And such a wine to begin with, and such another at the end." "Very well, M. Burguet," replied Madeleine, as she went out. Two minutes afterward she brought us a good toast soup. During a blockade this was something greatly to be desired; three weeks later we should have been very fortunate to have got one. Then she brought us some Bordeaux wine, warmed in a napkin. But you do not suppose, Fritz, that I am going to tell you all the details of this dinner? although I remember it all, with great pleasure, to this day. Believe me, there was nothing wanting, meats nor fresh vegetables, nor the large well-smoked ham, nor any of the things which are dreadfully scarce in a shut-up city. We had even salad! Madame Barrière had kept it in the cellar, in earth, and Burguet wished to dress it himself with olive oil. We had, too, the last juicy pears which were seen in Phalsburg, during that winter of 1814. Burguet seemed happy, especially when the bottle of old Lironcourt was brought, and we drank together. "Moses," said he with softened eyes, "if all my pleas had as good pay as you give, I would resign my place in college; but this is the first fee I have received." "And if I were in your place, Burguet," I exclaimed, "instead of staying in Phalsburg, I would go to a large city. You would have plenty of good dinners, good hotels, and the rest would soon follow." "Ah! twenty years ago this might have been good advice," said he, rising, "but it is too late now. Let us go and take our coffee, Moses." Thus it is that men of great talents often bury themselves in small places, where nobody values them at their true worth; they fall gradually into their own ruts, and disappear without notice. Burguet never forgot to go to the coffee-house at about five o'clock, to play a game of cards with the old Jew Solomon, whose trade it was. Burguet and five or six citizens fully supported this man, who took his beer and coffee twice a day at their expense, to say nothing of the crowns he pocketed for the support of his family. So far as the others were concerned, I was not surprised at this, for they were fools! but for a man like Burguet I was always astonished at it; for, out of twenty deals, Solomon did not let them win more than one or two, with the risk before his eyes of losing his best practice, by discouraging them altogether. I had explained this fifty times to Burguet; he assented, and kept on all the same. When we reached the coffee-house, Solomon was already there, in the corner of a window at the left--his little dirty cap on his nose, and his old greasy frock hanging at the foot of the stool. He was shuffling the cards all by himself. He looked at Burguet out of the corner of his eye, as a bird-catcher looks at larks, as if to say: "Come! I am here! I am expecting you!"