The melons are excellent; the
omelets are wonders, and the salads something to be remembered. But, if
you are two-and-twenty, with the world in a sling and both ends of the
sling in your hand, and if this is your first real outing since your
college days, it would be just as well for you to pass it by and take
your coffee and rolls at the little restaurant over the bridge, or the
one farther down the street.
Believe me, a most seductive place is this Chalet Cycle, with its tables
set out under the trees!
A place, at night, all hanging lanterns and shaded candles on
_tete-a-tete_ tables, and close-drawn curtains about the kiosks. A
place, by day, where you lunch under giant red and white umbrellas, with
seats for two, and these half-hidden by Japanese screens, so high that
even the waiters cannot look over. A place with a great music-stand
smothered in palms and shady walks and cosey seats, out of sight of
anybody, and with deaf, dumb, and blind waiters. A place with a big
open gateway where everybody can enter and--ah! there is where the
danger lies--a little by-path all hedged about with lilac bushes, where
anybody can escape to the woods by the river--an ever-present refuge in
time of trouble and in constant use--more's the pity--for it is the
_unexpected_ that always happens at the Chalet Cycle.
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