An Infinity of Mirrors by Richard Condon

connected feeding and drinking societies, which he designed principally for North Americans who cannot bear to eat well alone. He became an uncommonly rich man because of this.”
    â€œHe became so pale when he drank.”
    â€œHe became as white as chalk only when he drank the red wine of Pauillac, Château du Colombier-Monpelou”
    â€œHis third wife was called Josette Monpelou.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œPapa admired her.”
    â€œOf course. Well, one evening in the Restaurant du Golf your papa had ordered ortolans under white truffles. When they arrived he opened a small tin of something called condensed milk which he poured over the ortolans and truffles, ate it with gusto, then washed it all down with a Montrachet ’o6—a wonderfully rewarding wine and a long keeper—which he mixed before everyone’s eyes with some American soft drink he had brought with him in a grotesquely shaped bottle.”
    â€œThey sent it to Papa from America.”
    â€œMy dear, Benoit Lesrois left his chair like a wounded water buffalo and knocked your father off his chair. Your father took up his cane and beat Lesrois out of the restaurant while Smadja, the old sommelier , struck feebly at your father with a long, white napkin. There was total chaos in the restaurant, and four soufflés which my husband was cultivating were ruined. Lesrois rushed to his newspaper and at white heat wrote his famous column “J’accuse!” and attacked your father, calling him a disgrace to France. Your Papa answered with a full-page advertisement which carried only the name Benoit Lesrois followed by three words: Liberté? Egalité? Fraternité? Monsieur Lesrois was hissed wherever he went, but your father was hissed wherever he went, too, and it was of far more consequence in his case, because he was an actor.
    â€œA solution had to be found. Your father sent Monsieur Lesrois a letter which said Lesrois was too fat to be challenged to a duel. And he was a huge man—he looked like Sir Toby Belch, as Jupp played him. Instead of dueling, your father offered to bet Monsieur Lesrois a quarter of a million francs that he could take him to a restaurant that Lesrois would not be able to identify but which he would have to agree was the finest restaurant he had ever patronized. He was so clever, your papa. He returned the quarrel to the stomach and removed it from the area of patriotism which was causing the hissing so disturbing to his performances.”
    â€œHe never told me they hissed him in the theatre,” Paule said in a shocked voice.
    â€œWell, naturally. He was an actor. The very idea of the wager so amused Lesrois that he accepted at once and spread the word all over Paris. He kept laughing heartily right up to the second forkful of food.”
    â€œI was there!” Paule said with excitement. “I ate with them! I was the official witness!”
    â€œHow delicious of your father to provide a ten-year-old witness.”
    â€œOh, no, madame. It was Papa’s analysis that Monsieur Lesrois could not defile my innocence by denying what had happened.”
    â€œBut what did happen, child? What was the name of the restaurant?”
    Paule giggled with delight. “There was no restaurant. You see, first Papa had had a recording made at Foyot’s which reproduced all the sounds in a restaurant at the height of the dinner hour.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œAha! You will see. Papa fetched Monsieur Lesrois in the big Hispano-Suiza and blindfolded him. The car drove to Cours Albert I. As they got out of the car I was in the main hall with the gramophone and I played the special recording of Foyot’s—and do you know what?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œAs Monsieur Lesrois, led by Papa, crossed the main hall, he said, ‘Sounds Lice Foyot’s to me.’”
    â€œExcellent.”
    â€œPapa told Monsieur Lesrois that they would eat in a private dining