INGENIOUS SWINDLE IN A FRENCH RESTAURANT.

Patea Mail, 18 March 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

INGENIOUS SWINDLE IN A FRENCH RESTAURANT.

Keepers of restaurants in Paris have been growing rich, like other traders in that prosperous capital, and have not found that Republican appetites are on the whole much worse than those of Imperial or Royalist epicures. They are, however, not quite rich enough, to be able to provide dinners gratis even to customers of the most “ distinguished ” appearance. Consequently one of the best known of these restaurateurs was much vexed the other day, on finding out that he had served a gentleman with some of his best wines and viands, and afterwards allowed him to walk off without paying a sou for the entertainment. The process adopted by the stranger for thus economically dining was ingenious, though tolerably simple, and it shows the advantage of being aided in difficult undertakings by a trusty and judicious friend. The eater of the dinner sat down and enjoyed himself thoroughly for an hour, when just as he was completing his repast another gentleman walked into the room and asked to speak to its proprietor. He explained to this latter that he was a detective officer, and had tracked to this retreat a person of whom he gave a correct description. It was impossible to mistake the identity of the interesting gentleman who had just been ordering the finest wines men-

tioned on the card; and it was arranged that to avoid scandal he should be told that the Baron de X wished to speak with him below. On receiving the message the distinguished-looking lon vivant immediately stepped out into the street, requesting that in the few moments of his absence his dessert might be served. Once in the street he was, of course, arrested, and straightway driven off in the carriage of the supposed police officer, the restaurateur being only too glad to assist the proceding, to avoid a “scene” which would make his fashionable rooms notorious. As to the bill, he had no misgivings as to seeing it paid when on the following morning he sent it round to the Commissary’s office. But the Commissary knew nothing of the prisoner or of the person who had arrested him.