"
Then as I rose to go, "Good night, M'sieur," said Joseph a little sadly.
"Be very sure that there is always a welcome for you 'ere."
The next time that I dined at the Mazarin was some four weeks later, on
the eve of my return to the Front. A strange waiter showed me to my
place, and Joseph was nowhere to be seen. Indeed a wholly different air
seemed to pervade the place since my last visit. Presently I beckoned to
a waiter whom I recognised as having served under the old _regime_.
"Where is Monsieur Joseph?" I asked him.
"Where indeed, Sir!" the man replied. "It is all so strange. One day it
is arranged that he shall take over the restaurant and its staff, and on
the next he come to say 'Good-bye' to us all, and then leave for France.
Oh, it is _drole_. So good a business man to lose the chance that comes
once only in a life! He is too old to fight. Yet who knows? Maybe he
heard of something better out there...."
As the man spoke the gold-and-white walls of the restaurant faded, the
clatter of plates and dishes died away, and I was back again in a tiny
village shop in Picardy.
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