In the centre an
arch way, protected by heavy iron gates, leads into an inner court,
occupied chiefly by stables. To the right is the entrance to the
police magistrate's office and court, and to the left is the entrance
to our Hostelry.
A typical old Frenchman, with a snow-white drooping moustache and
closely cropped white hair, runs the hotel with the aid of his rosy
cheeked daughter and a couple of maids. The old man spends his time in
dispensing wine and beer, looking after the maids, occasionally
cooking a meal for a particular guest, buying the food, and playing
billiards with the little groups of old cronies that foregather in the
common room each evening. Like all Frenchmen, he had been a soldier in
his time, and had never forgiven the Germans for 1870. His picture as
a young man in uniform, hung in the dining-room of the hotel.
Moreover, he was a musician, and before the war had played the French
horn in the town band. His banquet hall, which we were now using as a
laboratory, had been the band room and the home of all band practices
in the long winter months. How the old man did roll his eyes with
ecstasy and raise his hands with unutterable joy as he listened for
the first time to the wonderful mellow music of the British Grenadier
Guards' band as it played in the bandstand in the square. Handel's
largo, the overture to Tannhauser, and a fantasia on British
airs,--each brought forth a different series of gestures.
Pages:
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196