Page 124 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

the boulevard. It was very uncomfortable—the arm of the
seat cuts into your back—and much colder than I had ex-
pected. There was plenty of time, in the long boring hours
between dawn and work, to think what a fool I had been to
deliver myself into the hands of these Russians.
Then, in the morning, the luck changed. Evidently the
PATRON had come to an understanding with his creditors,
for he arrived with money in his pockets, set the alterations
going, and gave me my advance. Boris and I bought maca-
roni and a piece of horse’s liver, and had our first hot meal
in ten days.
The workmen were brought in and the alterations made,
hastily and with incredible shoddiness. The tables, for
instance, were to be covered with baize, but when the PA-
TRON found that baize was expensive he bought instead
disused army blankets, smelling incorrigibly of sweat. The
table cloths (they were check, to go with the ‘Norman’ deco-
rations) would cover them, of course. On the last night we
were at work till two in the morning, getting things ready.
The crockery did not arrive till eight, and, being new, had all
to be washed. The cutlery did not arrive till the next morn-
ing, nor the linen either, so that we had to dry the crockery
with a shirt of the PATRON’s and an old pillowslip belong-
ing to the concierge. Boris and I did all the work. Jules was
skulking, and the PATRON and his wife sat in the bar with
a dun and some Russian friends, drinking success to the
restaurant. The cook was in the kitchen with her head on
the table, crying, because she was expected to cook for fifty
people, and there were not pots and pans enough for ten.

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