The next course appeared; but still, except a solitary individual, who made a desperate move, and cut up a fowl which he handed round, no one put out a finger; as we were quite at the lower end of the table, and saw with consternation that our appetites, sharpened with the fine air of the sea, were not likely to be satisfied, and not relishing this Governor Sancho's fare, we beckoned to a mute female, who had entered with the second course, and stood by as if a spectator of the solemnity, and remonstrated on the absurdity, entreating to have something brought us; she answered gravely, that _in our turn_ we should be attended to; and in the end we were fortunate enough to procure a little cream, of which we took possession; and then, wearied out with the tedium of the proceeding, rose and made a retreat, leaving the rest of the taciturn company to wait for and contemplate their dessert.

It was not so much the supineness of the attendants as the apathy of the guests that amazed us; having generally observed in France, that _mauvaise honte_ by no means stood in the way of hungry persons, and that a French appetite is with difficulty appeased, even after partaking of every dish on the table: a fact of which we had lately been reminded at Poitiers, where a set of men, who ate in a most prodigious manner, after the last condiment had disappeared exclaimed, one to the other, "_Eh, mon Dieu! on ne fait que commencer, il me semble._" Our desertion being reported to the lady of the Three Candlesticks, she came to apologise; fearing that her enforced absence had caused something to go wrong at the dinner.

She told us that she was obliged to attend to the domestic arrangements of her hotel, and to superintend fifteen workmen who were busied in some necessary duties; but, _as she always saw to everything herself_, we should have no cause to complain another day.

We had meditated finding out another place to dine at, but this disarmed us; and, day after day, we were obliged to submit to something very similar, being forced to make a perfect struggle for our dinner, and submit to the studiedly tedious movements of the Breton girl, whose frowns and scowls accompanied every action.

We found, one day, a champion in an old gentleman, who, a stranger and traveller, like ourselves, endeavoured to create a reform; but was only partially successful.