, replenished the pepper-boxes and
other paraphernalia of the dining art. The gabble in this close
apartment was terrific. Joseph, the maitre d'hotel, rapped in vain a
dozen times for silence. The chef poked his head of a truculent Gascon
through the door and indulged in a war of wit with a long fellow from
Marseilles,--called the "mast" because he was very tall and thin, and
had cooked in the galley of a Mediterranean trading brig. From time to
time one of the piccolos, a fat little boy from the South, carried in
pitchers of flat beer, brewed in the suburbs. As it was a hot day, he
was kept busy. The waiters had gone through a trying morning; there were
many strangers in Paris. Outside, the Boulevard des Italiens, despite
its shade trees, broiled under a torrid July sun that swam in a
mercilessly blue sky.

The majority of the men were listening to gossip about their colleagues
in the Cafe Cardinal across the way. Ambroise alone sat apart and patted
and smoothed the salt in its receptacles. He was a young man from some
little town in Alsace, a furious patriot, and the butt of his
companions--for he was the latest comer in the Cafe Riche. Though he
told his family name, Nettier, and declared that his father and mother
were of French blood, he was called "the German." He was good-looking,
very blond, with big, innocent blue eyes; and while he was never
molested personally,--a short, sharp tussle with a cook had proved him
to be a man of muscle,--behind his back his walk was mimicked, his
precise attitudes were openly bantered. But Ambroise stood this torture
gantlet equably. He had lived long enough among Germans to copy their
impassive manner and, coupled with a natural contempt for his
fellow-monkeys in the cage, he knew that perhaps in a day a new man
would receive all these unwelcome attentions. Moreover, his work,
clear-cut, unobtrusive, and capable, pleased M. Joseph. And when the
patron himself dined at the cafe, Ambroise was the garcon selected to
wait upon him. Hence the jealousy of his colleagues. Couple to this the
fact that he was reported miserly, and had saved a large sum--which were
all sufficient reasons for his unpopularity.

As the afternoon wore on little airs began to play in the tree-tops; the
street watering carts had been assiduous, and before the terrace water
had been sprinkled by the piccolos so effectively that at five o'clock,
when the jaded stock-brokers, journalists, and business men began