he contrary would convince him that it was _not_ a
confoundedly poor dinner. Thereupon a challenge was given and accepted,
and the whole company present adjourned as spectators to a duel which
ended by Saint-Foix receiving a wound in the arm.

"That is all very well," said the wounded combatant; "but I call you to
witness, gentlemen, that I am still profoundly convinced that a cup of
coffee, with milk and a roll, is a confoundedly poor dinner."

At this moment the principals were arrested and carried before the Duke
de Noailles, in whose presence Saint-Foix, without waiting to be
questioned, said:

"Monseigneur, I had not the slightest intention of offending this
gallant officer who, I doubt not, is an honorable man; but your
excellency can never prevent my asserting that a cup of coffee, with
milk and a roll, is a confoundedly poor dinner."

"Why, so it is," said the Duke.

"Then I am not in the wrong," persisted Saint-Foix; "and a cup of
coffee"--at these words magistrates, delinquents, and auditory burst
into a roar of laughter, and the antagonists forthwith became warm
friends.

"Boswell in his _Life of Johnson_ tells a story of an old chevalier de
Malte, of _ancienne noblesse_, but in low circumstances, who was in a
coffee house in Paris, where was also Julien, the great manufacturer at
Gobelins, of fine tapestry, so much distinguished for the figures and
the colours. The chevalier's carriage was very old. Says Julien with a
plebeian insolence, 'I think, sir, you had better have your carriage new
painted.'

"The chevalier looked at him with indignant contempt, and answered:

"'Well, sir, you may take it home and dye it.'

"All the coffee house rejoiced at Julien's confusion."

Sydney Smith (1771-1845) the English clergyman and humorist, once said:
"If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee; it is the
intellectual beverage."

Our own William Dean Howells pays the beverage this tribute: "This
coffee intoxicates without exciting, soothes you softly out of dull
sobriety, making you think and talk of all the pleasant things that ever
happened to you."

The wife of the president of the United States prefers coffee to tea.
Afternoon guests at the White House may be refreshed, if they choose, by
a sip of tea. But while tea is on tap for callers, Mrs. Harding always
has coffee for those who, like herself, prefer it.

_Old London Coffee-House Anecdotes_

A good-sized volume might be compiled