The other noticeable restaurant of this group is one founded by M. Roche, which bears in large letters on its front "Le Dîner Français," and which occupies the ground floor of No. 16 Old Compton Street. A story I have been told of the origin of the restaurant is rather picturesque. M. Roche was a baker and _pâtissier_, and one day two Frenchmen came into his shop and asked where they could get a good French meal. M. Roche replied that he and his family were about to eat their midday meal, and that if the strangers from his native land cared to join them he would be delighted. The two Frenchmen enjoyed their midday meal so thoroughly that they asked to be allowed, during their stay in London, to take all their meals at the bakery, paying their share, and M. Roche's establishment gradually changed its character, becoming a full-blown restaurant. That M. Roche served his apprenticeship under Frederic at the Tour d'Argent in Paris does not militate against the probability of this story. M. Roche, having made a fortune in Old Compton Street, returned to France and bought an hotel near Granville. _Le Dîner Français_, from which the establishment takes its name, was always an eighteen-penny meal, and continued to be so under the present proprietor, M. Béguinot, until the epidemic of "lightning strikes" came in the spring of 1913, when, to cover the extra expense entailed by giving cooks and waiters their weekly holiday, the price was raised to one-and-nine. M. Roche always had the reputation of buying the best material in the market, and M. Béguinot has maintained this reputation. The restaurant at dinner-time is generally filled to its holding capacity, and as many as four hundred dinners are sometimes served on one evening. The restaurant is narrow, but it runs far back, three rooms being thrown into one. The walls are of cream colour, with a skirting of deep orange; the floor is covered with oilcloth; the knives are black-handled, but cheapness in M. Béguinot's establishment does not mean dirt, for everything is as clean as clean can be, and the waiters, who all talk excellent English, wear shirts and aprons as clean as the walls. Near the door in the first of the rooms are two long tables, and at these any man who is by himself takes a seat.