It Was Shoved Jam-Up Against The
Road, As Is The French Custom; And It Was Surrounded By A High,
Broken Wall, On Which All Manner Of Excrescences In The Shape Of
Tiny Dormers And Misshapen Little Towers Hung, Like Texas Ticks
On The Ears Of A Quarantined Steer.
Within the wall the numerous
ruins that made up the inn were thrown together any fashion, some
facing one
Way, some facing the other way, and some facing all
ways at once; so that, for the housefly, so numerously encountered
on these premises, it was but a short trip and a merry one from
the stable to the dining room and back again.
Sure enough, old Marie was on the job. Not desiring to be unkind
or unduly critical I shall merely state that as a cook old Marie
was what we who have been in France and speak the language fluently
would call la limite! The omelet she turned out for us was a thing
that was very firm and durable, containing, I think, leather
findings, with a sprinkling of chopped henbane on the top. The
coffee was as feeble a counterfeit as chicory usually is when it
is masquerading as coffee, and the vin ordinaire had less of the
vin to it and more of the ordinaire than any we sampled elsewhere.
Right here let me say this for the much-vaunted vin ordinaire of
Europe: In the end it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an
adder - not like the ordinary Egyptian adder, but like a patent
adder in the office of a loan shark, which is the worst stinger
of the whole adder family.
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