mer the tariffs showed a second
hundred per cent increase in delicacies, and one of at least fifty per
cent in staples, which brought them almost up to the New York
standards. Outside of Paris prices continued to be moderate and fair.

Just as I was about starting on my last trip to the Front before
sailing for home, official announcement was made that dog biscuits
would shortly be advanced in price to a well-nigh prohibitive figure.
So I presume that very shortly thereafter the head waiters began
offering dog biscuits to American guests. I knew they would do so,
just as soon as a dog biscuit cost more than a lobster did.

Until this trip I never appreciated what a race of perfect cooks the
French are. I thought I did, but I didn't. One visiting the big cities
or stopping at show places and resorts along the main lines of motor
and rail travel in peacetime could never come to a real and due
appreciation of the uniformly high culinary expertness of the populace
in general. I had to take campaigning trips across country into
isolated districts lying well off the old tourist lanes to learn the
lesson. Having learned it, I profited by it.

No matter how small the hamlet or how dingy appearing the so-called
hotel in it might be, we were sure of getting satisfying food, cooked
agreeably and served to us by a friendly, smiling little French
maiden, and charged for at a most reasonable figure, considering that
generally the town was fairly close up to the fighting lines and the
bringing in of supplies for civilians' needs was frequently
subordinated to the handling of military necessities.

Indeed, the place might be almost within range of the big guns and
subjected to bombing outrages by enemy airmen, but somehow the local
Boniface managed to produce food ample for our desires, and most
appetising besides. His larder might be limited, but his good nature,
like his willingness and his hospitality, was boundless.

I predict that there is going to be an era of better cooking in
America before very long. Our soldiers, returning home, are going to
demand a tastier and more diversified fare than many of them enjoyed
before they put on khaki and went overseas; and they are going to get
it, too. Remembering what they had to eat under French roofs, they
will never again be satisfied with meats fried to death, with soggy
vegetables, with underdone breads.

Sometimes as we went scouting about on our roving commission to see
what w