r cheerful industry, according to
the circumstances and the temperament.

At that time his well-known establishment consisted of two dining-halls,
at right angles to each other; long, narrow, low-ceiled rooms, looking
respectively on the Rue Neuve-de-Richelieu and the Place de la Sorbonne.
The furniture must have come originally from the refectory of some
abbey, for there was a monastic look about the lengthy tables, where the
serviettes of regular customers, each thrust through a numbered ring of
crystallized tin plate, were laid by their places. Flicoteaux I. only
changed the serviettes of a Sunday; but Flicoteaux II. changed them
twice a week, it is said, under pressure of competition which threatened
his dynasty.

Flicoteaux's restaurant is no banqueting-hall, with its refinements
and luxuries; it is a workshop where suitable tools are provided, and
everybody gets up and goes as soon as he has finished. The coming and
going within are swift. There is no dawdling among the waiters; they are
all busy; every one of them is wanted.

The fare is not very varied. The potato is a permanent institution;
there might not be a single tuber left in Ireland, and prevailing dearth
elsewhere, but you would still find potatoes at Flicoteaux's. Not once
in thirty years shall you miss its pale gold (the color beloved of
Titian), sprinkled with chopped verdure; the potato enjoys a privilege
that women might envy; such as you see it in 1814, so shall you find
it in 1840. Mutton cutlets and fillet of beef at Flicoteaux's represent
black game and fillet of sturgeon at Very's; they are not on the regular
bill of fare, that is, and must be ordered beforehand. Beef of the
feminine gender there prevails; the young of the bovine species appears
in all kinds of ingenious disguises. When the whiting and mackerel
abound on our shores, they are likewise seen in large numbers at
Flicoteaux's; his whole establishment, indeed, is directly affected by
the caprices of the season and the vicissitudes of French agriculture.
By eating your dinners at Flicoteaux's you learn a host of things of
which the wealthy, the idle, and folk indifferent to the phases of
Nature have no suspicion, and the student penned up in the Latin Quarter
is kept accurately informed of the state of the weather and good or bad
seasons. He knows when it is a good year for peas or French beans, and
the kind of salad stuff that is plentiful; when the Great Market is
glutted with c