Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 69: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ALFRED DE ROSANN, 61 it would have been well for Champiginon had he attended to naught save his kitchen and his cookery- book; for his business throve even better than his mest sanguine anticipations had expected, and the Cadran Rouge, or Red Clock, soon spread its fame throughout the whole neighbourhood 6f the Boulevard du ‘Temple and the Marais; or, to use the chivalrous language of ancient days, “its reputation was speedily bruited abroad.”? But Champignon’s unlucky ideas of opposition and rivalry led him into a sad dilemma, which eventually caused him to take the high road for Brest, and which has now procured for ourselves and our readers the pleasure of his acquaintance. It appears that the worthy family ofa grocer in the Rue Montmorenci, having resolved to celebrate the birth- day of some superannuated uncle, addressed a letter one morning by the two-penny post to the master of the Cadran Bleu, informing him that a party of five or six-and-twenty would dine at his house on a cer- tain day, and that he must prepare a sumptuous repast, at which no luxury nor expense was to be grudged, so that the whole affair might be on a mag- nificent scale. This welcome epistle enclosed a bank note of five hundred francs, or twenty pounds ster- ling of British money. It happened, through the negligence of the postman, that the letter fell into the hands of Champignon, who instantly wrote a reply, in which he declared that the -‘Cadran Bleu had - ceased to exist, that he had set up in the same line of business at the Cadran Rouge, that the ancient pro- prietor of the Cadran Bleu was a sleeping partner with him, and that if the family and its guests did not express the most unequivocal approbation of the way in which he would treat them, thew money should be restored. This daring cheat succeeded. Little did the honest grocer care who “ founded the feast,’’ or at what house his friends partook of it, so long as it was good; and with regard to the perfection of the meats, the pastry, the dessert, and the wine, there was not a single dissentient voice. To be brief, VOL. 1.—6 COMmicoooks