“DINNER WITH MADAME”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 382, 16 June 1928, Page 27

“DINNER WITH MADAME”

(Continued from page 26) tiny, with mullioned windows which shut out the dreariness of mists and cold. To-night it was our own. The tablecloth was blue-checked; on it stood a yellow bowl of grapes and a two-pound pat of butter. How different are the Bretons from the French in that respect. The feeling which Katherine Mansfield describes In her “Journal” is no exaggeration —the feeling of wanting to put a pound of the best butter on the window-sill just to see it melt; for to see the French treat butter as solid gold, goads unhidden spites and extravagances to the sur- | face. On a meat dish lay five small round slices of a queer dry sausage. “It’s going to be pretty thin, I'm afraid,” said Jon. “But here are soup spoons.” I said, relieved to think of something hot coming, and with no shame for my food-dwelling thoughts. Lucille brought in a steaming tureen. She stood talking shyly for a minute or two, but we kept answering out of turn, not knowing whom she was addressing because of a squint in her | left eye. The soup was thick with onions and potatoes, and savoury to a degree; we each finished a large plateful. Jon looked questioningly at me. I peeped in the tureen, cast a withering glance at the meagre sausage, and for answer ladled out another goodly portion. Jon ! did likewise. Lucille came in later—much later, i as if she were expecting some such gluttony, and put some green pickles beside the cold meat. Now, quite suddenly, after two plates of the potage, the sausage appeared less mean, and we ate it remarking that we had worried needlessly about a scanty supper. We had started to nibble the little green grapes when Lucille came in for a third time. “Good Heavens. Madame has made |us a pudding,” was the thought we j telephathed to one another. | But no! When the lid was raised a juicy Chateaubriand sent up succu- | lent odours to our nostrils—browned i onions circled it, and brown gravy stood in a jug nearby. Our hunger i was well nigh spent. Obviously : Madame le Beon had cooked the steak | specially for us, and would be disI appointed if we failed to do justice | to her art. In came Lucille yet once more—with a dish of beans. This was too much ! — gone was our appetite, and yet here j was Lucille with a message from Madame hoping that we'd like the beans as she’d grown them herself. ' We tried them, found them good; pudding came—a light creamy batter, then a cheese and square biscuits. ; How we regretted our greed over the soup and our lack of faith in Madame. For a little while longer we sat on talking over the day’s adventures; then sought the kitchen to thauk Madame, and sat on a bench talking to Lucille while she washed up th> dishes with a younger girl. 1 “And you enjoyed your little meal?" j asked Ma,dame. It. was a banquet we assured her; to which she only said with a twinkle. ' ' rt i you’ve had enough to [ cat? Etes-ious surf”