The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-07-16
EATING AS DONE IN PARIS

From W. D. Nesbt's Paris letter to the Chicago Evening Post.
 ATING in Paris is a most impor- GD) tant transaction. The table is O something to be approached With due formahty, and after proper prepara- ton. One should be confident of "a sense of readiness for the ceremony. There is no such thing as rl}shing in, ordering sandwich and a cup of coffee with a piece of pie as a chaser, swallowing it while the waiter punches the check, and then going on your way Even the smallest restaurants insist upon dignity and de- liberation on the part of their patrons, while in the more ornate places the pail Of decorum and ceremony is heavy.
 In the Meurice, as we'll as all other din- ing rooms, you will observe a stoclSy man, who boasts a set of sideburns on his face that would have made the late Commo- dore Vanderbilt turn a deep green with envy. Nowhere on the face of the earth or the face of man may such austere sidewhIskers be grown as in Paris. And
 
 this facial adornment. No doubt if an- other waiter were to dare to allow his sdew hlskers to leak he would be shot at sunrise or hurled into the Seine. Tho man with the biateral fringe is the assist ant head waiter. The head waiter wears mustache. The other walters may have nothing on their faces save smiles and eyebrows.
 A man back of us is ordering a meal from the menu. The man is an American and has not yet learned that every where in Paris that they can get your money they talk English. l do not doubt that the average Parisian restaurant man or shopkeeper speaks every language which pertains to a country that has a circulating medium of exchange. The American is worrying about the menu pointing his finger at the dishes he wishes and speaking a marvelously phonetic French. The waiter is saying "Oui, m sier." at every pause. At last the man gets to the finish and says that he will have a "coop Jackoo and dem tassy. Then the waiter leans over him sohcitious- ly and asks:
 "Will yez hoy anything else, sor?''
 The head waiter himself, followed at three paces by the man with the side whiskers, leads us to our table. We say to the head waiter that we would like glass of ice water.
 M sieur dayseerez eau ct glace,' he re- spends, deferentially.
 We tell him that we not only dayseerez IL. ing thrtsy and for him to send it along with alacrity
 Now comes the marvellous system of the Paris restaurant The head waiter turns and tells his assistant the joyful news that we want some ice water The assist ant smiles until his side whiskers are orinkled and beckons a common or every day waiter to whom, he communicates the intelligence. The waiter turns to an ether, who has been behind him all this while, and murmurs something. The sec end waiter crosses the room and holds converse with third, who goes down the room and may be seen in earnest confer ence with still another The other sends another for the water, apparently.
 Meanwhile we are waiting and thrsting. We grow interested
 Anal Here comes a perfectly strange waiter with the water bottle, and he Is followed by another strange one. who bears a tray on which rest in solemn gran deur glass and a silver bowl of cracked ice. They place the bottle on the table and the bowl on smaller table. fresh installment of walters comes at this june ture. One of them takes the glass and puts two pieces of ice in it. He hands the glass to a companion, who bears it to the assistant head waiter, who preseDts it to the waiter nearest us
 Imagine our feelings. We have waited now for 10 minutes the parched area inside of us has spread to alarming pro- portions, and still we dare not complain.
 Our walter pours the water from the
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