← The proprietor and cook was a Frenchman, known to us as Monsieur Vingtième; the waiters were his two daughters, Rose and Berthe; and the food, according to faith, was good. 🔊
← The gangway between the two rows of tables at the Vingtième was hardly more than two feet wide (Rose and Berthe, in their ministrations, had always to edge past each other, quarreling in whispers as they did so), and any one at the table abreast of yours was virtually at yours. 🔊
← To Berthe, who waited on him, he spoke French fluently, but with a hardly native idiom and accent. 🔊
← I gathered that this was his first visit to the Vingtième; but Berthe was offhand in her manner to him: he had not made a good impression. 🔊
← Berthe had appeared at the kitchen door, thinking the stranger wanted his bill. 🔊
← Berthe had come forth at the sound of our rising. 🔊
← Now and again Rose or Berthe appeared for a moment. 🔊
← Only the sound of Berthe's brisk footstep from the kitchen enabled me, forced me, to drop it, and to utter: "What shall we have to eat, Soames?" 🔊
← "Il est souffrant, ce pauvre Monsieur Soames?" asked Berthe. 🔊
← Dazed, I turned back at length into the little room, and I suppose I paid Berthe or Rose for my dinner and luncheon and for Soames's; 🔊