Page:Whymper - Scrambles amongst the Alps.djvu/208

168 deficient in quantity, and, according to my experience, very often deplorable in quality.

I will not venture to criticise in detail the dishes which are brought to table, since I am profoundly ignorant of their constitution. It is commonly said amongst Alpine tourists that goat flesh represents mutton, and mule does service for beef and chamois. I reserve my own opinion upon this point until it has been shown what becomes of all the dead mules. But I may say, I hope, without wounding the susceptibilities of my acquaintances among the Italian innkeepers, that it would tend to smoothen their intercourse with their guests if requests for solid food were less frequently regarded as criminal. The deprecating airs with which inquiries for really substantial food are received always remind me of a Dauphiné innkeeper, who remarked that he had heard a good many tourists travel in Switzerland. "Yes," I answered, "there are a good many." "How many?" "Well," I said, "I have seen a hundred or more sit down at a table d'hôte." He lifted up his hands—"Why," said he, "they would want meat every day!" "Yes, that is not improbable." " In that case," he replied, "I think we are better without them."