It certainly is a marvel how people manage to thrive on the fare provided at these entertainments,--ghostly entertainments, we may call them,--for there, as surely as the clock tolls forth the hour, appears the spectre "cock and salad," which, with the perversity of fate, ever haunts the path of the European tourist, to scare and depress his appetite. The old philosopher, in observing "Ὁ ἁνθρωπος εὑεργετος πεφυκως,"[2] must have had some prophetic revelation of the after-times of modern civilization, and particularly of Biarritz _tables d'hôte_; for if man was not naturally a benevolent creature how could he endure with equanimity day after day the same plateful of luke-warm water--_potage à l'eau chaude_, it ought to be called--apparently stirred up with a tallow candle to give it a flavour; the same recurring square phids of old dry rug (rosbif) of which the soup was made; the same _perdreaux aux choux_, which sound so magnificent in theory, but when reduced to sad reality consist mainly of _choux_ and the bones of some small specimens of the feathered tribe? Then the _filets de bœuf_--can they be made of old door-mats?--what labour must one undergo before he can persuade the "too solid flesh to melt!" At these gastronomic revels we are sure to meet an English paterfamilias, with mamma and daughters. When we say English, we do not mean moderately English, but downright and awfully British--British in the dogged look of plethoric, stupid self-complacency and general superiority over everybody and everything not British--British in that moneyed bovine state of mind which distinguishes the inferior specimens of the _nouveau riche_ fresh from Albion. The mamma and daughters, too, are British to a degree, as they sit enveloped in a dull atmosphere of Clapham gentility, striving to their utmost to appear easy and graceful "at meals and in company." But in spite of these laudable endeavours, it is a difficult point to decide which is preferable to witness--the alarming efforts of people endeavouring to eat and drink elegantly, holding their knives and forks like pens, and a wine-glass between a finger and thumb, with the rest of the fingers outstretched to their fullest tension, ending in the little finger pointing away in far perspective; or honestly at once scratching themselves with a spoon, lapping up gravy with a knife at the fearful risk of widening their mouths to the extent of the aperture of a letter-box, and when thirsty taking a hearty draught of water from the finger-basins. As for the _juste milieu_ people talk about, that at most _tables d'hôte_ seems quite Utopian and might form an innocent branch of study for the Reform League.