'Genie is always ready with a smile; yes, even
in the rush of Mardi Gras!

Antoine's does not set up to be a regular hotel, and we stopped there
because, during the carnival, all rooms in the large modern hotels
across Canal Street were taken. The carnival rush made room-service at
Antoine's a little slow, now and then; sometimes the bell would not be
answered when we rang for breakfast; or again, our morning coffee and
_croissants_ would be forty minutes on the way; sometimes we became a
little bit impatient--though we could never bring ourselves to say so to
such amiable servitors. As a result, when we were leaving the city for a
little trip, we determined to stay, on our return, at the Grunewald, a
hotel like any one of a hundred others in the United States--marble
lobbies, gold ceilings, rathskellers, cabaret shows, dancing, and page
boys wandering through the corridors and dining-rooms, calling in nasal,
sing-song voices: "_Mis_-ter _Shoss_-futt! _Mis_-ter _Ahm_-kaplopps!
_Mis_-ter _Praggle_-fiss! _Mis_-ter Blahms!"

We did return and go to the Grunewald. But comfortable as we were made
there, we had to own to each other that we missed Antoine's. We missed
our curious old rooms. I even missed my _chaufbain_, and was bored at
the commonplace matutinal performance of turning on hot water without
preliminary experiments in marine engineering. We thought wistfully of
'Genie's patient smile, and of her daily assurance to us, when we went
out, that "when she had made the apartments she would render the key to
the bureau, _alors_,"--which is to say, leave the key at the office. We
yearned for the cafe, for good Francois, for the deliciously flavored
oysters cooked on the half-shell and served on a pan of hot rock-salt
which kept them warm; for the cold tomatoes _a la Jules Cesar_; for the
bisque of crayfish _a la Cardinal_; for the bouillibasse (which
Thackeray admitted was as good in New Orleans as in Marseilles, and
which Otis Skinner says is better); for the unrivaled gombo _a la
Creole_, and pompano _en Papillotte_, and pressed duck _a la Tour
d'Argent_, and orange Brulot, and the wonderful Cafe Brulot
Diabolique--that spiced coffee made in a silver bowl from which emerge
the blue flames of burning cognac, and in honor of which the lights of
the cafe are always temporarily dimmed.

Nor least of all was it that we wished to see again the mother of Jules,
who sits back of the _caisse_ and takes in the money, like many