ck to its own line; and many others, humbler
but great at the price.

Listen! O ye starved amidst plenty, to the tale of the Hotel de France.
This restaurant stood on California street, just east of Old St. Mary's
Church. One could throw a biscuit from its back windows into Chinatown.
It occupied a big ramshackle house, which had been a mansion of the gold
days. Louis, the proprietor, was a Frenchman of the Bas Pyrenees; and
his accent was as thick as his peasant soups. The patrons were Frenchmen
of the poorer class, or young and poor clerks and journalists who had
discovered the delights of his hostelry. The place exuded a genial
gaiety, of which Louis, throwing out familiar jokes to right and left as
he mixed salads and carried dishes, was the head and front.

First on the bill of fare was the soup mentioned before--thick and clean
and good. Next, one of Louis' three cherubic little sons brought on a
course of fish--sole, rock cod, flounders or smelt--with a good French
sauce. The third course was meat. This came on en bloc; the waiter
dropped in the centre of each table a big roast or boiled joint together
with a mustard pot and two big dishes of vegetables. Each guest manned
the carving knife in turn and helped himself to his satisfaction. After
that, Louis, with an air of ceremony, brought on a big bowl of excellent
salad which he had mixed himself. For beverage, there stood by each
plate a perfectly cylindrical pint glass filled with new, watered
claret. The meal closed with "fruit in season"--all that the guest cared
to eat. I have saved a startling fact to close the paragraph--the price
was fifteen cents!

If one wanted black coffee he paid five cents extra, and Louis brought
on a beer glass full of it. Why he threw in wine and charged extra for
after-dinner coffee was one of Louis' professional secrets.

Adulterated food at that price? Not a bit of it! The olive oil in the
salad was pure, California product--why adulterate when he could get
it so cheaply? The wine, too, was above reproach, for Louis made it
himself. Every autumn, he brought tons and tons of cheap Mission grapes,
set up a wine press in his back yard, and had a little, festival vintage
of his own. The fruit was small, and inferior, but fresh, and Louis
himself, in speaking of his business, said that he wished his guests
would eat nothing but fruit, it came so cheap.

The city never went to bed. There was no closing law, so that the
saloons k