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The dinner was a simple one, consisting of soup, a joint, and two or three vegetables; the wines vin ordinaire and Burgundy. There were a good many persons of high rank present, none of whom spoke English, however, except Bismarck, who sat next the King and acted as interpreter when his Majesty conversed with me.
"My dear boy, there are only four hundred persons in New York who really count socially." It was as if he had said: "Decant all your clarets before serving them, even your vin ordinaire. If at a dinner you give both Burgundy and claret, give your finest claret with the roast, your Burgundy with the cheese.
"There are some," Kendricks remarked, "who prefer beer. Personally, I like to preserve my local color. Vin ordinaire in Paris, beer in Germany. Madame!" Kendricks had caught madame's eye with the glass at his lips. He rose at once and bowed. Madame acknowledged his graciousness with a huge smile, which spread even to her double chin. Monsieur leaned forward and joined in the ceremony.
Happily for them and for us, the hills are of granite and their sides most precipitous, and the innovators make slow progress in modernisation. At the hotels everyone drinks cider, rather than vin ordinaire; and at night we are awoke with the clatter of sabots and the voice of the watchman.
Indeed, it is not uncommon with the French caravansaries to keep a little extra good wine in stock for those who can distinguish between an ordinaire and a supérieur, and are willing to pay the price. "See Naples and die," say the Italians. "See Paris and live," say the French.
I have now a favor to ask of you; which is, to include me in the list of those to whom you send the first fruits of the brilliant productions of your pen. There is none who is more devoted to you, and who has a more ardent desire to convince you of this. "I am, monsieur le gentilhomme ordinaire, with real attachment, etc." I showed this letter to M. de Richelieu.
Madame also is not a "bird with a long bill;" the dinner, including piquette, alias vin ordinaire, coffee, and the petit verre, costs five francs to the stranger, and one franc less pays the dejeuner a la fourchette most men here eat two dinners. I am talking in the present of things twelve years past. What a shadowy, ghostly table d'hote it has now become to me!
On the table were some wonderful lucid china bowls filled with cigarettes, Parascho and caporal ordinaire, Egyptian and every imaginable kind. After tea we pushed back our chairs and smoked. His conversation was delightful, and showed me at once that he was a man of brilliant gifts, yet an eccentric.
He helped Leighton to half of its contents and himself to the rest. "Have patience, my old one," cried Leighton, "the boy may have an uneducated palate, but he is none the less possessed of a sublobular void that demands filling at stated intervals." "Bah!" cried Le Brux, "order him a dish of tripe with onions and vin ordinaire. But he'll have to sit at another table."
Ordinaire, ordinaire again thin, feeble, overrated; and so down the whole list. And when we have done discussing our men friends, have we not all the women? Do these not advance absurd pretensions? Do these never give themselves airs? With feeble brains, don't they often set up to be esprits forts? Don't they pretend to be women of fashion, and cut their betters?
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