And Mademoiselle, fresh and smiling, with a bunch of roses pinned to her blouse, is in command in the upper rooms, while Madame, as gracious as she is handsome, sits at her desk in one of the lower rooms with a great bowl of flowers before her, and laughs with the young artists, who form a large portion of the clientele of the Au Petit Riche, and controls the waitresses, and sends the waiters, of whom there are two, out to fetch the wine, which comes from a wineshop a few paces away. Established at a table in the first of the upstairs rooms, a glance at the walls will tell anyone that the place is a haunt of artists, for the pictures are just the omnium gatherum of artistic trifles that an artist generally puts on the walls of his den. Pencil drawings, rough things in charcoal, etchings, mezzotints, caricatures, sketches in colour, Japanese coloured prints--a gallery of scraps at which a Philistine would turn up his nose, but which look comfortable and homelike to the eye artistic. And at the head of the _carte du jour_, which a little waitress holds out to you, there is a good black and white of the exterior of the little restaurant--there is the atmosphere of art about the place. Let us look down the list of dishes and order our dinner. The little waitress, on chance, has addressed us in French, but if she is answered in English can carry on a conversation in that language. There are two soups on the list, _consommé Colbert_, which costs sixpence, no doubt because of the egg, and _crème Cressonière_, which costs only threepence, and we will choose the cheaper of the two. Amongst the fish dishes, the salmon and the sole cost a shilling, but we will choose the _vol au vent de Turbot Joinville_, which costs ninepence. Amongst the entrées is an item, two _quails en Cocotte_, for a shilling. Curiosity prompts me to suggest that we should order this, having in mind what the price of a single quail is on a club bill of fare, but we shall be on safer ground in ordering one of the dishes of the house, the _filet mignon Petit Riche_, which costs a shilling, and with it some peas, fourpence, and some new potatoes, also fourpence. Amongst the _entremets_ is a _Pêche Petit Riche_, which the little waitress strongly recommends, but _beignets de pommes_ at threepence seems to me a more fitting ending for our repast.