Arthur Bowman called me in early July. He was coming to Paris in a few days with the secretary of state, and he had a free evening, and would I like to join him for dinner at Taillevent? I thought he must be joking, but he said he had already made the reservation. The invitation surprised me. At that time I barely knew our legendary chief diplomatic correspondent, and I wasn’t sure why, with all of Paris to choose from, the visiting pasha had chosen to bestow his expense-account largess on me. But I was so accustomed to being celebrated at that point that I readily said yes.

The owner of Taillevent, who luckily had been away the day it was seized, greeted me warmly when I arrived. He summoned the sommelier, Henri, who was wearing the same gray coat he had worn that wretched evening, with the grape pin on the lapel. Henri kissed me on both cheeks and embraced me, and I thought for a moment he might start crying. I had not realized that earlier evening how intimate and soothing the restaurant was. Everything in the room—the Chinese lamps, the porcelain, the absurd arsenal of silverware—now conveyed a spirit of timeless luxury. As the owner walked me to the table there was a smattering of applause from other diners and several of the restaurant staff. That month I was still famous in Paris.

Bowman was already seated at the blue banquette when I arrived. He immediately struck up a conversation with the owner. They seemed to be old friends. Bowman had a magisterial air, especially that night. He was dressed in one of the perfect suits he ordered every year from his tailor at the Mandarin Hotel in Hong Kong—a deep charcoal gray, accompanied by a crisp white shirt and an Hermès tie with a pattern of gold braid on a field of lustrous blue. In the soft light of the restaurant his graying hair appeared to be dappled silver.

“Of course you know Jean-Claude,” he said, after our host had left.

“I’ve never met him before, to tell you the truth,” I said. “My expense account is not as robust as yours.”

“Nobody’s is. I am the last of a breed. But now that you’re such a star, you may be eligible to join, so I’ll tell you my secret. Whenever you’re in New York, try to do favors for the business side of the paper. Talk to advertisers, give a speech at the accounting department’s annual retreat, be nice to the publisher. Then, if anyone ever tries to question you about expenses, you’ll have friends in the right places.” I nodded at what sounded like sage advice.