Each Guest
Manned The Carving Knife In Turn And Helped Himself To His Satisfaction.
After That, Louis, With An Air Of Ceremony, Brought On A Big Bowl Of
Excellent Salad Which He Had Mixed Himself.
For beverage, there stood by
each plate a perfectly cylindrical pint glass filled with new, watered
claret.
The meal closed with "fruit in season" - all that the guest
cared to eat. I have saved a startling fact to close the paragraph - the
price was fifteen cents!
If one wanted black coffee he paid five cents extra, and Louis brought
on a beer glass full of it. Why he threw in wine and charged extra for
after-dinner coffee was one of Louis' professional secrets.
Adulterated food at that price? Not a bit of it! The olive oil in the
salad was pure, California product - why adulterate when he could get it
so cheaply? The wine, too, was above reproach, for Louis made it
himself. Every autumn, he brought tons and tons of cheap Mission grapes,
set up a wine press in his back yard, and had a little, festival vintage
of his own. The fruit was small, and inferior, but fresh, and Louis
himself, in speaking of his business, said that he wished his guests
would eat nothing but fruit, it came so cheap.
The city never went to bed. There was no closing law, so that the
saloons kept open nights and Sundays at their own sweet will. Most of
the cafes elected to remain open until 2 o'clock in the morning at
least.
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