Lost Bab ballads :: :: University of Virginia Library

No gathering ever can beat
Such a treat
As you meet
In the people who gather, to eat
At a table-d'hôte every day,
So strange in appearance and phrase
A leur aise
In their ways—
As the people who show off their traits
At a table-d'hôte every day.

109

You'll never be tired of meeting
The people who gather for eating
At a table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte,
Table-d'hôte every day!

In the Chair an old fellow you'll find—
He sits there
In the chair
Because for a fortnight he's dined
At the table-d'hôte every day.
He's fatherly quite in his ways,
Looking most
Like a host,
Your senior by several days.
He table-d'hôtes every day!
You'll never be tired of meeting
The people who gather for eating
At a table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte,
Table-d'hôte every day!

There's another you know at a glance
Who's designed
In his mind
To shine in the language of France,
At the table-d'hôte every day.
“Hi, Garsong, vous venez ici,
Here, I say
S'il vous plait—
Donnez moi—thanks—all right.” He will be
At the table-d'hôte every day,
You'll never be tired of meeting
The people who gather for eating
At a table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte,
Table-d'hôte every day!

110

Then the lady so very genteel
That you'd think
She would shrink
From the notion of making a meal
At a table-d'hôte every day.
But you find, though genteel she can eat,
Go right through
The “menoo”
Soup, fish, entrée, joint, cheese, and sweet—
At the table-d'hôte every day.
You'll never be tired of meeting
The people who gather for eating
At a table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte,
Table-d'hôte every day!

There's the vulgar old glutton and wife,
He who shines
As he dines
And who swallows the blade of his knife
At the table-d'hôte every day,
With his napkin tucked under his chin,
The old bear
Settles there,
Long before it is time to begin,
At the table-d'hôte every day!
You'll never be tired of meeting
The people who gather for eating
At a table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte,
Table-d'hôte every day!

There's a gay and a gushing old girl,
Who must be
Forty-three
With a seven-and-sixpenny curl,

111

At the table-d'hôte every day,
There's also a boy of nineteen
(Quite a lad)
Driven mad
By her beauty, who always is seen
At the table-d'hôte every day.
You'll never be tired of meeting
The people who gather for eating
At a table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte, table-d'hôte,
Table-d'hôte every day!