gaiety, of which Louis, throwing out familiar jokes to right and left as
he mixed salads and carried dishes, was the head and front.

First on the bill of fare was the soup mentioned before - thick and
clean and good. Next, one of Louis' three cherubic little sons brought
on a course of fish - sole, rock cod, flounders or smelt - with a good
French sauce. The third course was meat. This came on en bloc; the
waiter dropped in the centre of each table a big roast or boiled joint
together with a mustard pot and two big dishes of vegetables. Each guest
manned the carving knife in turn and helped himself to his satisfaction.
After that, Louis, with an air of ceremony, brought on a big bowl of
excellent salad which he had mixed himself. For beverage, there stood by
each plate a perfectly cylindrical pint glass filled with new, watered
claret. The meal closed with "fruit in season" - all that the guest
cared to eat. I have saved a startling fact to close the paragraph - the
price was fifteen cents!

If one wanted black coffee he paid five cents extra, and Louis brought
on a beer glass full of it. Why he threw in wine and charged extra for
after-dinner coffee was one of Louis' professional secrets.

Adulterated food at that price? Not a bit of it! The olive oil in the
salad was pure, California product - why adulterate when he could get it
so cheaply? The wine, too, was above reproach, for Louis made it
himself. Every autumn, he brought tons and tons of cheap Mission grapes,
set up a wine press in his back yard, and had a little, festival vintage
of his own. The fruit was small, and inferior, but fresh, and Louis
himself, in speaking of his business, said that he wished his guests
would eat nothing but fruit, it came so cheap.