"Madame, there are fresh mushrooms everywhere in the market," waving
his hand to show their universality.

"Everybody is eating them--"

"Old Pomponnette," Jules continued, "only this morning offered me a
plate, piled up high, for ten cents."

"Idiot! Why did you not buy them?"

"If madame had said so; but madame did not say so. Madame said, 'Soup,
Jules; carrots, rice,'" counting on his fingers.

"And the gumbo?"

"I have explained that that was an accident. Madame said 'Soup,'"
enumerating his menu again; "madame never once said mushrooms."

"But how could I know there were mushrooms in the market? Do I go to
market?"

"That is it!" and Jules smiled at the question thus settled.

"If you had told me there were mushrooms in the market--" pursued
madame, persisting in treating Jules as a reasonable being.

"Why did not madame ask me? If madame had asked me, surely I would
have told madame. Yesterday Caesar brought them to the door--a whole
bucketful for twenty-five cents. I had to shut the door in his face to