d think me a partner of the enterprise, for fifty and
sixty cents, '_vino compreso_.' The material is excellent, and the
treatment is artistic; the company of a simple and self-respectful
domesticity which I think it an honor to be part of: fathers and mothers
of families, aunts, cousins, uncles, grandparents. I do not deny a Merry
Widow hat here and there, but the face under it, though often fair and
young, is not a Merry Widow face. Those people all look as kind and
harmless as the circle which I used to frequent farther down-town at a
fifty-cent French table d'hote, but with a _bouillabaisse_ added which I
should not, but for my actual experiences, have expected to buy for any
money. But there are plenty of Italian and French tables d'hote for the
same price all over town. If you venture outside of the Latin race, you
pay dearer and you fare worse, unless you go to those shining halls
which I have been praising. If you go to a German place, you get grosser
dishes and uncouth manners for more money; I do not know why that
amiable race should be so dear and rude in its feeding-places, but that
is my experience."

"You wander, you wander!" we exclaimed. "Why should we care for your
impressions of German cooking and waiting, unless they go to prove or
disprove that living in New York is cheaper than in the European
capitals?"

"Perhaps I was going to say that even those Germans are not so dear as
they are in the fatherland, though rude. They do not tend much if at all
to tables d'hote, but the Italians and the French who do, serve you a
better meal for a lower price than you would get in Paris, or Rome, or
Naples. There the prevalent ideal is five francs, with neither wine nor
coffee included. I'll allow that the cheap table d'hote is mainly the
affair of single men and women, and does not merit the consideration
I've given it. If it helps a young couple to do with one maid, or with
none, instead of two, it makes for cheapness of living. Service is
costly and it is greedy, and except in large households its diet is the
same as the family's, so that anything which reduces it is a great
saving. But the table d'hote which is cheap for one or two is not cheap
for more, and it is not available if there are children. Housing and
raw-provisioning and serving are the main questions, and in Europe the
first and last are apparently much less expensive. Marketing is
undoubtedly cheaper with us, and if you count in what you get wit