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Dismember a large white fowl very carefully. Stew it in white stock, with a chopped onion, a good pinch of paprika, and two glasses of white wine, for about forty-five minutes. Take out the fowl, and pass the stock through the tammy. Flavour with a good cray-fish butter, and garnish with tails of cray-fish, large truffles, olives, and croûtons of French puff-paste (feuilletage). Serve very hot.
I had been kept late in Fleet Street on Saturday, and at a little before seven I woke to the fact that it was near the dinner hour, that I was in the clothes I had worn all day, that I was brain-weary and tired, and not energetic. I should be late for dinner if I went home, half across the width of London; I could not well dine at a club without evening clothes, and a smart restaurant was equally out of the question, for I felt, being in the state of humiliation which weariness and London grime bring one to, that I could not have held my own as to the choice of a table or the ordering of a dinner against even the least determinedmaître d'hôtel.
The easiest way was to dine at one of the Fleet Street hostelries, and I ran such of them as I know over in my mind. How they have changed since Herrick rang them into rhyme! Then they were the Sun, the Dog, the Triple Tun. Now they are the Rainbow, the Cock, Anderton's, the Cheshire Cheese, and a host more. It was a pudding day at the CheshireCheese, not the crowded day, which is Wednesday, but a day on which I was sure to get a seat in the lower room and be able to eat my meal in comfort and content; and that finally decided me in favour of the hostelry in Wine Office Court.
It is not a cheerful thoroughfare that leads up to the Cheshire Cheese. It is a narrow and dark passage, and the squat little door of the tavern itself is not inviting, for it is reminiscent of a country public-house. It is not until one is through the sawdusted passage and into the lower room that one is in warmth and comfort.
I was a little late. The man who loves the Cheshire Cheese pudding is in his place at table a few minutes before the pudding is brought in at 6.30P.M., a surging billow of creamy white bulging out of a great brown bowl, and then when the host begins to carve—and there is a certain amount of solemnity about the opening of this great pudding—the early guest gets the best helping. By a quarter-past seven, when I made my entry, the pudding had sunk down into the depths of the bowl.
Most of the tables were full, but the long table, at the head of which Dr. Johnson is alleged to have sat with Goldsmith at his left hand, had some vacant places, and I took one of them. "Pudding?" said the head waiter. I assented, and Mr. Moore, the host, a dapper gentleman, with a wealth of dark hair and a dark moustache, who had been chatting to a clean-shaven young gentleman who had the seat opposite to mine, moved to the great bowl togive me my helping, for no one but the host touches the sacred pudding. The clean-shaven young gentleman relapsed into a newspaper, and while I waited the few seconds before the brown mixture of lark and kidney and oyster and steak was put before me I looked round at my neighbours. A gentleman, bald of head and with white whiskers, who was addressed as "Doctor," sat in the great lexicographer's seat, and talking to him was a bearded gentleman whom I put down at once as a press-man, a sub-editor probably. The only other guest at our table was a good-looking, middle-aged man in clothes that had the gloss of newness on them, a flannel shirt, a white collar, and a gaudy tie. He had finished his meal, was evidently contented with the world, and there was a conversational glint in his eye when he caught mine that made me look away at once; for I was hungry and downcast and not inclined for cheerful converse until I had eaten and drunk.
"Pudding, sir," and the head waiter put the savoury mass before me; "and what else?" I ordered a pint of beer and stewed cheese. I ate my pudding, and being told that the cheese was not ready, ate a "follow" afterwards, for there is no limit to the amount of pudding allowed, and some of the "followers," as the host of the tavern calls them, have been known to have half a dozen helpings; and then the brown and fizzling cheese in its little tin tray, with a triangle of toast on either side, was put before me. The cheese, mixed with mustard and neatly spread on the toast, according to custom,eaten, the last drops of the bitter beer poured from the pewter tankard into the long glass which is supposed to give brilliancy to the malt liquor; and then, feeling a man again, I looked across at the flannel-shirted gentleman who had been smoking a pipe placidly, with a look which meant "Come on."
The ripple of conversation broke at once. He had been out in Australia for fifteen years, went out there as a mere lad, and to-day was his first day in town after his return. He had been used in past times to come to the Cheshire Cheese for his mid-day meal, and the first place he had sought out when he came to London was the old hostelry. He missed the old waiters, he said, but otherwise the place was much the same and as homely as ever.
I recognised in the attraction that had brought this wanderer from the antipodes to the old-fashioned tavern, first of all places, the same force that had made me, theblaséman about town, unconsciously decide to dine there in preference to any other Fleet Street hostelry—its homeliness. The old-fashioned windows with their wire blinds, the sawdusted floor, the long clay pipes on the window-sill; the heirloom portrait of Henry Todd, waiter; the "greybeard" and leather-jack on their brackets (both gifts from Mr. Seymour Lucas the artist); the piles of black-handled knives, the willow-pattern plates and dishes; the curious stand in the centre of the floor for umbrellas; the great old-fashioned grate with a brass kettle singing merrily on it; the pile of Whitaker's almanacks putting a touch ofcolour into a dark corner; Samuel Johnson's portrait over his favourite seat, and a host of prints, relating to the great man, on the walls; the high partitions, one particular square pew being shielded by a green baize curtain; the simple napery; the ruin of the great pudding on its little table; all carried one back through the early Victorian times to those dimmer periods when even coffee-houses were unknown, and every man took his ease at his inn.
The floodgates of the friendly stranger's speech once unloosed, he told me of his life in Australia, and the hard times he had had, and how matters had come so far right that he was able to come home to England and enjoy himself for six months; and the clean-shaven young gentleman—he was going on later to assist in an entertainment to the poor of Houndsditch, he told us—emerged from his newspaper, and we all found a good deal to say. Nothing would satisfy the returned wanderer but that he must be allowed to ask us to join him in drinking a bowl of the Cheshire Cheese punch, and Mr. Moore, the host, must make one of the party. The other guests—most of them, I should think, connected in some way or other with the Fourth Estate—had gradually drifted away, and Mr. Moore, who had been going from table to table, came and sat down. "No celebrities here to-night, Mr. Moore," I said somewhat reproachfully, and he admitted the soft impeachment, but Irish-wise told us of the great men of the present day that we had missed by not dining at the Cheese on any night but the present one. Every journalist of fame,every editor, has eaten within the walls of the old hostelry, and there is no judge that sits on the bench who has not taken some of his first dinners as a barrister in the little house up Wine Office Court.
The hot punch was brought in in one of the china bowls, of which there are three or four in a little corner cupboard in the old-fashioned bar across the passage, and an old silver ladle to serve it with; and the talk ranged back from the great men of the present day to those of the past. Thackeray knew the "Cheese" well; Dickens used to come in his early days and tell the present host's mother all his troubles, and so we got back to Goldsmith and Johnson, the latter of whom is the especial patron saint of the hostelry, for when he lived in Gough Square and Bolt Court the Cheshire Cheese is said to have been his nightly resort.
The punch ended, the time came for the reckoning. Of old the head waiters were all clean-shaven, like Henry Todd, whose portrait hangs aloft, and all the reckoning was done by word of mouth. But the present head waiter has introduced innovations; he wears a moustache, and makes out his bills on paper. This was mine—Ye rump steak pudding, 2s.; vegetables, 2d.; cheese, 4d.; beer, 5d.; total, 2s. 11d.
8th February.
The American Comedian and myself stood at a club window and looked out on London. He was rehearsing, and so enjoyed the rare privilege of having his evenings free to spend as he liked. I had no business, except to get myself a dinner somewhere, so we agreed to eat ours in company.
The difficulty was to decide where to dine. The Comedian dined at one club or another every day of his life before going to the theatre, so a club dinner was out of the question. Not having a lady to take out we agreed that we did not care to go to any of the "smart" restaurants: we wanted something a little more elaborate than a grill-room would give us, and more amusing company than we were likely to find at the smaller dining places we knew of.
I think that the suggestion to dine at the cheaptable d'hôtedinner at one of the very large restaurants, to listen to the music, and look at the people dining, came from me. Our minds made up on this point, there was the difficulty of selecting the restaurant, so we agreed to tossup, and the spin of the coin eventually settled upon the Holborn Restaurant.
In the many-coloured marble hall, with its marble staircase springing from either side, a well-favoured gentleman with a close-clipped grey beard was standing, a sheet of paper in his hand, and waved us towards a marble portico, through which we passed to the grand saloon with its three galleries supported by marble pillars. "A table for two," said amaître d'hôtel, and we were soon seated at a little table near the centre of the room, at which a waiter in dress clothes, with a white metal number at his buttonhole and a pencil behind his ear, was in attendance waiting for orders. Thetable d'hôtedinner was what we required, and then I noticed that I had to ask for the wine list, and that it was not given me opened at the champagnes, as is usually the custom of waiters.
The menu, which on a large sheet of stiff paper peeps out from a deep border of advertisements, is printed both in French and in English. This is the English side of it on the night we dined:—
SOUPS.Purée of Hare aux croûtons.Spaghetti.FISH.Suprême of Sole Joinville.Plain Potatoes.Darne de saumon. Rémoulade Sauce.ENTRÉES.Bouchées à l'Impératrice.Sauté Potatoes.Mutton Cutlets à la Reforme.REMOVE.Ribs of Beef and Horseradish.Brussels Sprouts.ROAST.Chicken and York Ham.Chipped Potatoes.SWEETS.Caroline Pudding. St. Honoré Cake.Kirsch Jelly.ICE.Neapolitan.Cheese. Celery.DESSERT.
We agreed to drink claret, and I picked out a wine third or fourth down on the list.
The Comedian said he was hungry, and I told him that I was glad to hear it, for it might check the miraculous tales which he generally produces at meal-times.
With the Spaghetti soup, which was brown and strong, the Comedian told me the tale of the mummy of one of the Ptolemies who lived some thousands of yearsb.c.which was revivified in the Boston Museum by having clam soup administered to it. It was not one of the Comedian's best efforts, and I capped it easily by a tale of the Japanese jelly-fish soup which is supposed to confer everlasting life, and which tastes and looks like hot water.
Thedarne de saumonwas rather a pallidslice, which I attributed to package in ice; but which the Comedian said was owing to its having overgrown its strength. "And that reminds me," he had just begun when I had the presence of mind to anticipate him, and to tell the story of the 140 lbs. mahseer which it took my uncle, on my mother's side, three days to land from the Ganges. I felt bound to tell him that the anecdote he subsequently related of a tarpon, that his first cousin, twice removed, had hooked, towing a steamer's lifeboat from the Floridas to Long Island, sounded like an invention.
To avoid friction we talked of our neighbours. Next door to us was a merry little party of three ladies, one a widow, and a gentleman in a red tie, and the Comedian invented quite a storyette, after the manner of Dickens, of the kindly brother taking his three sisters out to dinner on the birthday of one of them—no brother would order champagne for his sisters except on the occasion of a birthday, he said. A couple, in mourning, were husband and wife, and the Comedian, being in the vein, wove a pathetic little story round the unconscious couple. Two young men, in spick-and-span black coats, with orchids in their buttonholes, dining with two pretty girls, were groomsmen from some wedding entertaining two of the bridesmaids. Some nodding plumes showing over the second balcony the Comedian declared must belong to the "principal boy" of some provincial pantomime.
The cutlet of mutton that was brought to each of us was small, and had suffered from having to journey some way from the kitchen;but it was well cooked, and there was unlimited sauce with it. When I told the Comedian the established fact that at the Cape the sheep have to have wheels fitted to their tails, he pretended that in New England there is a breed that draw their tails in miniature waggons. I flatter myself, however, that my tale of the Ovis Polii, the perpendicular shot and the three thousand feet fall down a Cashmerian gully left him breathless. To save the Comedian from brain-weariness caused by invention I drew the waiter into conversation, and, beginning with the band—a good band, but much too loud—learned that we should find the time each piece was played on the programme which was on the back of the menu. It was not a full night, our waiter told us, but we were early, it was only 7.15, and the saloon would fill up presently; and then he drifted into wonderful figures of the number of guests the Holborn could hold at one time. We wondered inwardly, but sent him off to get us our beef and Brussels sprouts. "When I was out with Buffalo Bill——" the Comedian began as the waiter returned; but as my only story to go with beef is a Wildebeeste story, not one of my best, I mentioned somewhat austerely, that our helpings were growing cold. Then the Comedian, who was invincible in appetite, ate a helping of chicken and ham and reported favourably. Encouraged by this, I ate a slice of the ham which, with a dash of champagne for sauce, was good. The Comedian told rather a foolish story of a nigger robbing a hen-roost, which gave me an opening to relate my celebrated anecdoteof the Naval Brigade and the chickens during the Zulu War, an anecdote which has been known to make a rheumatic bishop and a deaf Chairman of Quarter Sessions laugh.
The sweets we took as read, and finished up our dinner with an ice, a trifle too salt, I thought. The waiter had been disappointed at our taking no sweets, but when we refused the offer of cheese and celery and dessert, he was afraid that something must be the matter with us, for most people at the Holborn eat their dinner steadily through.
The saloon had filled up as our waiter had predicted. There was a howling swell with tuberoses in the buttonhole of his frock-coat and a lordly moustache. There were two youngsters in dress clothes and "made-up" ties making merry with two damsels. There was a pretty actress—"she's going to play in our new piece. It's her first night off from playing at the Frivolity, and she has come here to be quiet," said the Comedian. There was a business man from the north being entertained by two City friends, and a host more diners whose history we had not time to invent, for our waiter had taken the pencil from his ear and was standing ready with a little book in his hand.
"Dinners, 7s.; attendance, 6d.; one bottle claret, 4s. 6d.; total, 12s." That was the bill our waiter gave us, and he said "Thank you" very heartily for a shilling for himself.
I should have appreciated my dinner more if the Comedian had confined his conversation to facts.
I regret to hear that the Comedian permitted himself to say, next day, at the Club that it was a thousand pities that I could not tell a story without exaggeration.
15th February.
Sometimes after a period of depression one wants a tonic in dinners, as one does in health. My gastronomic malady had been a family feast at which I had sat next to a maiden aunt who, after telling me that I was getting unpleasantly fat, recounted anecdotes of my infancy and childhood all tending to prove that I was the most troublesome baby and worst conducted small boy that ever was. Something had to be done to banish that maiden aunt and her anecdotes from my memory. The happy thought came to me that, as the antidote, I had better, as I wanted cheering up, ask Miss Dainty, of the principal London theatres, to be kind enough to come out and dine at any time and at any restaurant she chose to name. I sent my humble invitation by express early in the day, and received her answer by telegram:—"Yes. Romano's. Eight. See I have my pet table. I have been given a beautiful poodle—Dainty. Be good, and you will be happy."
At luncheon time I strolled down to therestaurant, the butter-coloured front of which looks on to the Strand, and the proprietor, "the Roman," as he is called by the habitués of the establishment, being out, I took Signor Antonelli, his second in command, into my confidence, secured the table next to the door, sheltered by a glass screen from the draught, which I knew to be Miss Dainty's pet one, and proceeded to order dinner. Antonelli—I must drop the Signor—who has all the appearance of a cavalry colonel, led off withhors-d'œuvre. I followed with, as a suggestion for soup,crème Pink 'Un, a soup named after a light-hearted journal which practically made "the Roman's" fortune for him. Then, as there were some beautiful trout in the house, the only question was as to the cooking of them.Truite au bleu, my first thought, was too simple.Truite Chambord, the amendment moved by Antonelli, was too rich; so we compromised byTruite Meunière, in the sauce of which the lemon counteracts the butter.Côtelettes de mouton Seftonwas Antonelli's suggestion, and was carried unanimously; but I altered his pheasant, which sounded greedy for two people, into aperdreau en casserole. Salad, of course. Then, taken with a fit of parsimony, I refused to let English asparagus go down on the slip of paper, and ordered insteadartichauts hollandais. Vanilla iceen corbeilleandpetits fourswound up my menu.
When the handsome lady arrived—only ten minutes late—she swept like a whirlwind through the hall—past the flower-stall, where Ihad intended to ask her to pause and choose what flowers she would—in a dress which was a dream of blue with a constellation of diamonds on it, and as she settled down into her seat at the table, not quite certain whether to keep on the blue velvet and ermine cloak or let it drop, I was told the first instalment of her news at express speed. I need not look a crosspatch because she was late, the pretty lady said. It was the fault of the cabman, who was drunk, and had driven her half-way down Oxford Street. What was a good name for a poodle? The one she had been given was the dearest creature in the world. It had bitten all the claws off the Polar bear skin in the drawing-room, had eaten up a new pair of boots from Paris, had hunted the cat all along the balcony, breaking two of the blue pots the evergreens were in, and had dragged all the feathers out of the parrot's tail. Was Sambo a good name? Or Satan? Or what? Why couldn't I answer?
My humble suggestions as to a name for a poodle having been treated with scorn, Miss Dainty turned her attention to thehors-d'œuvre. There were no plain sardines among the numerous little dishes on the table, and the ordinary tinned sardine was what her capricious ladyship wanted—and got. Thecrème Pink 'Unwas highly approved of, and I did my best to explain at length how the combination of rice with a Bisque soup softened the asperity of the cray-fish. Miss Dainty, changing the subject, demanded to know what the seascapes, which are framed all round the room, in mauresque arches, were. I told herthat the distemper paintings of deep blue sea and castles and islands and mosques, which are the principal features of the room, a room in which everything, the clock, the musicians' gallery, the electric light brackets, are of Eastern type, were views on the Bosphorus; and, thinking to amuse, related how when the paintings were first put up, a celebrated battle-painter and myself had volunteered to give an up-to-dateness to them by adding some Armenian atrocities to lend life to the pictures, and of "the Roman's" horror, under the impression that we really meant to do as we said. My humorous anecdote fell rather flat, for Miss Dainty, who did not care much for her trout, though I thought it very excellent, but a trifle too buttery, said that that was just the sort of silly thing I would do.
The quiet person with a silver chain round his neck had brought our bottle ofSt-Marceaux, and the clean-shaven little Italian waiter in a white apron had replaced the trout with the cutletsà la Sefton. For these Miss Dainty had nothing but praise, which I echoed very heartily.
"Your dinner—everything go right, eh, Mister Esquire?" and "the Roman," a dapper little Italian in faultless dress-clothes, with a small, carefully tended moustache, a full head of black hair, turning grey at the temple, and talking English with a free admixture of Italian, stood by our table, going his round to see that all the diners were satisfied. Miss Dainty did not ask for the deep-red carnation that was in "the Roman's" button-hole; but before he had passed on she was pinning it into her dress, andwhen I ventured a very mild remark I was told that if I had not been mean enough to let her pass the flower-stall without offering her a button-hole she would not have had to accept one from anybody else—a retort which was scarcely fair.
I asked Miss Dainty if she knew who the pretty lady dining with a good-looking grey-haired man at a table at the end of the room was. She did know and gave me a full account of the lady's stage career, and while theperdreau en casserolewas being cut up we ran over the professions of the various diners who occupied the triple line of little tables running down the room. The two men dining by themselves were powers in the theatrical world. "May I ask them to come and take their coffee and old brandy at our table?" I asked, and Miss Dainty graciously assented. There were as well a well-known theatrical lawyer talking business with the secretary to a successful manager; a dramatic author, who was proposing plays to a colonial manager; a lady with golden hair and a permanent colour to whom a small Judaic youth was whispering with great earnestness; a well-known sporting lord, dining by himself; a music-hall agent laying down the law as to contracts to a journalist; two quiet ladies in sealskin coats; and many others, nearly all connected with the great army of stage-land.
A little too much onion with theperdreau en casserolewe both thought, otherwise admirable. Salad good, artichokes good, though we preferred plain vinegar as a dressing to thehollandaisone,and the ice delicious. Then Miss Dainty trifled with cherries cased in pink sweetness and sections of oranges sealed in transparent sugar, and our two friends from the table at the far end came across and took coffee and liqueurs with us, and talked of the old days when Romano's was but a quarter of the size it is now, when it was far more Bohemian than it is now, when there was a little aquarium in the front window into which the sons of Belial used to try and force each other late at night, much to the consternation of the gold-fish, when everybody who took his meals there knew everybody else and the chaff ran riot down the single line of little tables, and when every Sunday morning a devoted but Sabbath-breaking band were led across the Strand by "the Roman" to see his cellars, "best in London," as he used to say.
All of a sudden Miss Dainty, whom these reminiscences did not interest very much, remembered that the door of the parrot's cage had been left open. She was quite sure that the poodle would be trying to kill the bird, and she must go back at once to see to the matter.
I put Miss Dainty, who said that she had enjoyed her dinner, into a hansom, two brown eyes full of laughter set in a pretty face looked out at me as she told me to be good and that then I should be happy, the cabman cried "Pull up" to his horse, and the pretty lady was off to the rescue of the parrot.
Then I went back and paid my bill: Two couverts, 6d.; hors-d'œuvre, 2s.; crème Pink 'Un, 2s.; truite, 2s. 6d.; côtelettes de mouton, 2s. 6d.;petits pois, 1s.; pommes, 1s.; perdreau, 6s.; salade, 1s.; artichauts, 2s.; glace, 2s.; champagne (107), 13s. 6d.; café, 3s.; liqueurs, 5s.; total £2: 4s.
22nd February.
When I asked Antonelli for a specimen menu of a dinner of ceremony such as is often given in the pretty Japanese room on the second floor he looked pleased and said that I should certainly have it; but when I asked for therecetteof thecrème Pink 'Unhe looked as doleful as if he had just heard of the death of his grandmother. But Signor Romano came to the rescue. "Thechefhe say that soup what-you-call-asecret du maison; but I tell him no mattersecretor not he just write it out for you." So I got myrecette. This is the dinner, and a noble feast it is, that Antonelli recommends for a party of twelve. TheHomard sauté à la Julienis a speciality of Romano's; but I have some respect for the feelings of Antonelli and thechef, and did not ask for arecetteofthat.
Huîtres natives.Petite bouchée norvégienne.Tortue claire.Crème Dubarry.Homard sauté à la Julien.Aiguillette de sole. Sauce Germanique.Zéphir de poussin à la Brillat-Savarin.Selle d'agneau à la Grand-Veneur.Petits pois primeur à la Française.Pomme nouvelle persillade.Spongada à la Palermitaine.Jambon d'York braisé au champagne.Caille à la Crapaudine.Salade de saison.Asperges vertes en branche. Sauce mousseuse.Timbale Marie-Louise.Bombe à la Romano.Petits fours assortis.Dessert.Café.
Therecetteof thecrème Pink 'Unis as follows:—
Mettez dans une casserole deux onces de beurre, deux cuillères-à-bouche d'huile d'olive; coupez en petits morceaux une carotte et un oignon, que vous laisserez cuire pendant cinq minutes tout doucement. Avez ensuite vingt-quatre écrevisses vivantes, un livre de crevettes et six tomates fraîches, que vous mettrez ensemble; ajoutez une demi-bouteille de Chablis, et, après avoir assaisonné de sel et poivre cayenne, couvrez votre casserole et donnez vingt minutes d'ébullition.
D'autre part prenez une livre d'orge perlée que vous aurez faite cuire pendant trois heures dans un bouillon ordinaire, brayez dans un mortier vos écrevisses et crevettes, ainsi que l'orge, mélangez, délayez avec un litre de bouillon, passez ensuite a l'étamine; ceci fait, remettez votre potage à chauffer sans lui donner de l'ébullition; additionnez une réduction de cognac où vous y aurez mis une branche de thym, deux feuilles de laurier, un petit bouquet de persil, d'estragon et cerfeuil. Finissez votre potage en y ajoutant six onces de beurre frais et servez avec croûtons.
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Put in a saucepan two ounces of butter and two teaspoonfuls of olive oil. Cut a carrot and an onion into small pieces, and let them cook gently for five minutes. Then take twenty-four live cray-fish, a pound of prawns, and six fresh tomatoes. Put these in altogether, and then add half a bottle of Chablis, and after having seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper, put the lid on the saucepan, and let it boil for twenty minutes. Have ready a pound of pearl barley which has been cooked for three hours, in ordinary stock. Pound in a mortar the cray-fish and prawns, with the barley, dilute with a pint and three-quarters of stock, and pass through a fine sieve. This done, put the soup back to warm again, without letting it boil. Add then a little cognac, in which you have steeped a bunch of thyme, two laurel leaves, and a little bunch of parsley, tarragon and chervil. Finish your soup by adding six ounces of fresh butter, and serve with sippets of fried bread.
The battle-painter and I were walking down the Strand, uncertain where to lunch, when just by the theatrical bookshop a man in a shabby suit of tweed and a billycock hat, drawn rather low down on his forehead, passed us quickly, looking into our faces for a second as he did so. "It's Smith," said the battle-painter. "Poor fellow!"
It was the man we had been talking about only that morning, the good fellow who had been at school with me, who had made a voyage on board a P. and O. in which both the battle-painter and I had gone out to India, and had been the life and soul of the ship; with whom we had spent a week in his station on the Bombay side, and who had come on a return visit to me in the Punjab when the battle-painter honoured me with his company at the quiet little garrison where I was quartered at the time. We knew he had left his cavalry regiment, and had heard vaguely that he had come to grief through some financial smash. Here was ourman, and we turned at once and went after him.
"I didn't think you fellows would know me in this kit," he said, when we caught him up and laid friendly hands on him. "Most people don't seem over-anxious to recognise me now." He certainly did not look flourishing, though he had the smart carriage of the soldier about him, was as carefully shaved, and his light moustache as carefully trimmed, as if he were going on parade, and had the old buoyancy of manner. "Where will you come and lunch with us?" we both asked in a breath. "It's my dinner hour now," he told us, and somehow there was a touch of pathos in the way he said it. We proposed the Savoy grill-room to him, or Romano's across the way; but he said that, if we were anxious that he should come and eat with us, he would sooner have a cut from the saddle of mutton at Simpson's than anything else.
We turned back and went into the entrance to the old-fashioned eating-place, with its imitation marble columns, its coloured tile floor, its trees in tubs, and its two placards on either side, one announcing that a dinner from the joint is to be had for 2s. 6d., and the other that a fish dinner for 2s. 9d. is served from 12.30P.M.to 8.30P.M.Smith changed his mind. The last fish dinner he had eaten was at Greenwich more than half a dozen years ago, when he had asked a party of thirty down to celebrate an investment that was going to make his fortune, and if we didn't mind he would eat another now.
We took three seats at the end of one of the tables in the downstairs room. Smith looked round with an air of recognition. Nothing had changed, he said, since the days when he used to come to get a cut from the joint after a day's racing. And, indeed, Simpson's does not look like a place that changes. The big dumb-waiter in the centre of the room, almost as tall as a catafalque, with its burden of glasses and decanters, and four plated wine-coolers, one at each corner as ornament, the divisions with brass rails and little curtains that run down one side of the room; the horsehair-stuffed, black-cushioned chairs and lounges, the mirrors on one side of the room and ground-glass windows on the other; the painted garlands of flowers and fish and flesh and fowl, mellowed by age and London smoke, that fill up the vacant spaces on the wall, the ormolu clocks, the decoratively folded napkins in glasses on the mantelpieces, the hats and coats hanging in the room, the screen with many time-tables on it, the great bar window opening into the room, framing a depth of luminous shadow, all are old-fashioned. Only the two great candelabra that stand, a dozen feet high, on either side of the room have been modernised.
The waiters at Simpson's are Britannic and have that dignity which sits so well on the chairman of a company addressing his shareholders, or an M.P. entertaining his constituents, or the genuine English waiter taking an order. It is an undefinable majesty; but it exists.
Rubicund gentlemen of portly figure, dressedin white, the carvers, leisurely push carving dishes, with plated covers, running on wheels, from customer to customer.
A benignant waiter with a grey beard had stood and accepted our order, which was, to begin with, turbot and sauce; and while with becoming dignity he conveyed the news to one of the white-coated gentlemen, Smith gave us a résumé of his history since we had all three parted at a railway station in the Punjab. He had almost been a millionaire, he had ridden as a trooper in a squadron of American cavalry, he had fought in Matabeleland, he had tried gold-mining without success; and now he was going this afternoon down to the City to meet a man who was going to finance a marvellous invention of his, and presently he would make the fortunes of the battle-painter and myself. The battle-painter and myself smiled, and fell-to on our turbot and its rubicund sauce, for we knew Smith of old. A fine big slice of firm turbot it was, but I fancy the sauce owed its deep colour and some of its substance to the artistic methods of the cook. Next Smith voted for a fried sole, while the battle-painter and I ordered stewed eels, and as the first bottle of Liebfraumilch, which Smith had preferred to any other wine or spirit, was getting near low-water mark, I asked our waiter, who somewhat resembled the ex-Speaker, to bring us another. Smith having for the moment exhausted his historical reminiscences, we could look round at our neighbours. Half a dozen country gentlemen up to see the shire-horses at Islington, most of them confiningtheir attention to those saddles of mutton which are the pride of Simpson's, a barrister or two, the good-looking husband of a popular actress, and four or five well-known bookmakers, for Simpson's is essentially sporting. Then our eels and the sole were brought. Smith said the sole was excellent; and except that I like my sauce with the eel a little richer than I got it at Simpson's, neither the battle-painter nor myself could find the slightest cause to grumble. The Liebfraumilch was pleasant and soft, and we were in the best of tempers when the whitebait, a trifle large, and the salmon for Smith—salmon which looked beautiful, and which we both secretly envied—arrived. A little group of men who bore the stamp of racing men about them had congregated round the bar window while we had been at table, and were being attended to by a rosy-faced maiden. Cheese and celery we paid but little attention to, for Smith, now quite the cheery, confident cavalryman of old, said that he must not miss his appointment in the City, but that when the splendid fortune that was in his grasp came to him he would give the battle-painter and myself, in return for our mid-day meal, a dinner at the Savoy that would outdo the celebratedrouge-et-noirone. It was pleasant to see the good fellow himself again, and we wished him success in his venture. Then, after seeing him off, we paid the bill. Dinner, 8s. 6d. (Smith's salmon was 3d. extra); two Liebfraumilch, 12s.; attendance, 9d.; total, £1: 1: 3.
Afterwards the battle-painter and myself went upstairs into the ladies' dining-room, a fineroom, which is lighter and fresher than the gentlemen's dining-room below, and there we had coffee and chatted with Charles Flowerdew, the head waiter, one of the real head waiters as they knew them in the old days, and listened to his stories and took a pinch of snuff out of his presentation snuff-box. And here Mr. Crathie, tall, clean-shaved, except for narrow side whiskers, with a white head of hair in which a ruddy tint still lingers, found us, and under his guidance we went farther upstairs and peeped through the glass doors into the room where half a dozen games of chess were being played. Mr. Crathie, who has been proprietor and, later, managing director of Simpson's for half a long lifetime, told us something of the history of the place, how it originally consisted only of a cigar-shop on the ground floor and the chess divan above, how he purchased it and formed it into a small company, and how now a larger company was to have control of it.
Before we left the old-fashioned house, about which the steam of saddles of mutton seems to cling, we looked in on the Knights of the Round Table, who have their club-room at Simpson's, who possess a wonderful collection of portraits of past worthies of the club, and a unique book of playbills, whose motto is, "I will go eat with thee and see your Knights," and who once a week dine together off plain English food at the round table, one piece of mahogany, from which they draw their name.
1st March.
Since I wrote the above, Simpson's has been acquired by a company which has also taken over The Golden Cross Hotel, Trafalgar Square. The old place has in no way been altered by its new masters, who believe in letting well alone. Charles Flowerdew has left the upper room, and retired with, I trust, a comfortable competency; but William, who for many years was head waiter at the Cock, and has as fine a store of reminiscences as any old-fashioned waiter to be found in London, now serves in the lower room, and is in himself a mine of amusing information.
If I had to set an examination paper on the art of dining, one of the questions I should certainly ask the examinee would be: "What occupation or amusement would you suggest for your guests after a dinner at a restaurant on Sunday?" The Hans Crescent Hotel management have answered this question in a practical way; and not the least pleasant part of a dinner at the smart hotel Sloane Street way is the coffee and liqueur and cigarette taken under the palms in the winter garden, where the red-shaded lamps throw a gentle light, and M. Casano's band playing Czibulka's waltz-whisper, "Songe d'amour après le bal," sends one back in a dream to the days when an evening of dancing was a foretaste of the seventh heaven, and every woman was a possible divinity.
The Editor does not write long letters, but the card with his initials at the bottom gave me place and time, and told me that I should find myself one of apartie carrée. What was the exact reason of the dinner that the good Editorgave to the gracious lady and the handsome niece and myself, I do not know; but I rather think that it was a propitiatory offering made for non-appearance on the editorial tricycle when warned for escort duty to the gracious lady, who had gone that day for a long bicycle ride. If it was so, the dinner at the Hans Crescent Hotel, plus the excuse given, whether it was church-going or letter-writing, did not save the Editor during the evening from little barbed conversational shafts as to sloth and laziness and the evil habit of lying late in bed on the Sabbath morning.
I never commit the unpardonable offence of being late for dinner, and three minutes before my time I was waiting in the oak-panelled hall, which, with its stained-glass window, big staircase with a balcony at the back, its palms and great fireplace, always looks to me like an elaborate "set" for a scene in some comedy. The hands of the clock stole on to eight o'clock, and that feeling of righteousness which comes to the man who is in time when he believes that his fellow-creatures are late fell on me, when, on a sudden, M. Diette, the manager of the hotel, grey of hair and moustache, a black tie under his "Shakspeare" collar, and a faultless frock-coat, appeared, and recognising me, asked me whether by chance I was the gentleman for whom the Editor and two ladies had been waiting some ten minutes in the drawing-room. So it came that when I went into the drawing-room, where the two ladies were looking at the brocades in the panels and the editorial eye was fixed on the clock on the mantelpiece, it was I who had tostumble through apologies, and I felt conscious that my tale of waiting in the hall sounded hideously improbable.
M. Diette himself showed us to our table in the dining-room, which is as near a reproduction of an old baronial hall as modern comfort, electric light, and civilisation will allow. The baron of old, in the days when each man cut his own portion off the roast meat with his dagger, might have been able to boast of the open fireplace in green Connemara marble and the panelled walls, but the handsome frieze and the carved oak pillars would have been beyond his artistic dreams. He would probably have preferred rushes to the Oriental rugs that half cover the oak floor, and he would certainly have thought the palmery seen through the open French window in a glow of rosy light a vision called up by some magician.
The Editor, stroking his pointed beard with satisfaction, was reading through the menu, the gracious lady and the handsome niece were noting, one by one, the celebrities dining at the other tables, and the head waiter was standing watching the Editor with the calm but deferential confidence an artist shows when an important patron is inspecting his work. A minor servitor, a thin tape of gold on the collar of his livery coat and wearing white gloves, was also in attendance, and the overture in the way ofhors-d'œuvre à la Russewas before us.
In quick succession our ladies had named the tall, slim, titled lady in black, who had come in leaning on a stick; the good-looking youngmusical critic, who was entertaining "Belle" and a very pretty girl; a newly-married Earl and his wife; the handsome stockbroker and his wife, who in the summer are to be found not far from Maidenhead Bridge, and at whose table were sitting the most hospitable of up-river hostesses and her son; a millionaire, who was entertaining a tableful of guests; and one or two titled couples whom the gracious lady knew, but whose names meant nothing to me. I was able to add my quota by pointing out a steward of the Jockey Club, at whose table was the owner of the good horse Bendigo.
The Editor, having learned that we all preferred for the moment claret to champagne, put down the menu with a little sigh of anticipatory gratitude, and ran his finger half-way down a page on the wine list. This was the menu which the gracious lady looked at, and then handed on to me:—
Hors-d'œuvre à la Russe.Consommé Brunoise à la Royale.Potage en tortue.Suprême de saumon à la Chambord.Tournedos à la Montgador.Poularde à la Demi-Doff.Caille rôti sur canapé.Salade.Flageolets Mtred'Hôtel. Bombe Chateaubriand.Corbeilles de friandises.
The handsome niece had approved of the people at the other tables as being most of them interesting and good-looking, had said she likedthe table with its decoration of a ring of yellow flowers and leaves drawn round the basket offriandises, and we began dinner with good appetite and good temper.
The clear soup with its patchwork ground of minutely chopped vegetables seen through the amber of its liquid was excellent and hot; the fish deserved a special word for its sauce, in the making of which an artist's hand had been employed; and thetournedoswith their attendant "fixings," to use an Americanism, a symphony in rich browns with the scarlet of the tomato to relieve it, gave no loophole for captious criticism. We had been talking of the respective merits of houseboats and cottages as summer residences, and from that had drifted on to the subject of the wonderful steam launch that the Editor owns, and inventions generally. The gracious lady had said her say on the wonders she knew of; and the handsome niece, not to be outdone, described the invention of the age through which by means of a little metal case half the size of the smallest pill box, every man is to make his own soda-water, which is to supersede all other inventions as a fuse for big guns, and is going to drive dynamite out of the field; and I, fired by the spirit of healthy emulation, had just started an account of the flying machine by which I hoped to reach Mars, to which the ladies, not noticing the twinkle in the Editor's eyes, were listening gravely, when the waiter brought thepoularde à la Demi-Doff. The Editor was the only one of us who took any, and he, in very excellent French, told the head waiter, who washovering round, that he thought it good. Whether it was that the gracious lady had caught the tail-end of the editorial smile at my Munchausen flying-machine story, or whether the non-appearance of the tricycle was remembered, it matters not; but the Editor was gravely warned not to talk Hindustani at the dinner-table.
The quails were a trifle over-cooked, and the artistic hand which had made the sauce for the salmon had not mixed the salad, which was too vinegary. I think our negative criticism must have hurt the feelings of the waiter, who probably paused on the way from the kitchen to wipe away a tear, for theflageolets, excellently cooked, were not quite as hot as they should have been. Then the dinner got into its stride again, for thebombewas admirable.
The band had been making music for the past half-hour in the winter-garden, and the diners at the various tables had gradually left the oaken hall for the tables, each labelled with the number of the corresponding dining-tables and name of the host, reserved under the rosy lamps and the palms. The violins played with a delightful softness, the rings of cigarette smoke curled and vanished up towards the glass dome. From table to table the men went, saying a word here, staying for a chat there; and at last, when the little band had played Gounod's "Ave Maria," and ended with the wail of Miska's "Czardas," it was time to gather in the hall to say good-night and be off homewards to the land of Nod. This was the bill that I askedthe Editor to let me glance at:—Four dinners at 10s. 6d., £2: 2s.; three bottles claret, £1: 10s.; cafés, 3s.; liqueurs, 3s.; total, £3: 18s.
8th March.
Mr. Francis Taylor has now taken Mons. Diette's place as manager. Mons. Heiligenstein, as chef, rules the roast, and boiled, and fried.
"None of your d—dà la's, and remember I won't get into dress clothes for anybody." That was what the old gentleman wrote, and it was not an easy matter to find a dining place and a theatre to go to afterwards that would suit my prospective guest.
The old gentleman lives his life in a little country town which is favourable to the growth of characters; he always wears a plain, double-breasted broadcloth coat; a bird's-eye cravat, taken twice round his old-fashioned collar, folded in a manner that would puzzle a modern valet, and secured by a fox-tooth pin; his waistcoats, the irreverent youths of the club say, descended to him from his great-grandfather, and his watch chain is a leather chin-strap. He has a particular chair by a particular window of the county club on which he sits in the afternoon of non-hunting days, and drinks one stiff glass of brandy-and-water. He has never worn a greatcoat, never missed a day's hunting for the last fifteen years, will walk a mile, run a mile, and ride a mileagainst any man of his own age, and he is near seventy, dislikes the French on principle, and has never been to France, and comes to London as rarely as he can—very pressing business, the Cattle Show or a horse show being the only matters that would ever bring him up even for the day. The son, the grandson, and great-grandson of comfortable country solicitors, he preferred entertaining clients to advising them, always shut up his office on hunting days, and having a surplus of the world's goods, for a bachelor, he lives a very comfortable life in the beetle-browed old house in the High Street, with its great garden behind, its dark dining-room with a glint of reflected lights from polished mahogany and massed silver, its crooked oak staircase, its panelled passages, and bedrooms, each with a huge four-poster bed, its carved chimney-pieces and uneven floors; with, as servants, a prim housekeeper, a fat cook—the only woman, he says, in the county who can make a venison pasty—and an old butler, with whom he argues as to the port to be drunk after dinner.
I know the old gentleman's tastes, for he has asked me often enough to the wonderful oyster and woodcock lunches he gives, and the solid English dinners in which haunches of venison, saddles of mutton, great capons, turkeys almost as big as ostriches, cygnets, sucking pigs, and such-like dishes generally are thegros pièces, and it was not easy to select a suitable dining-place for him. He was up for the Hackney Show; had, after much pressing, consented to dine andgo to the theatre, and where to take him I did not know.
The melodrama of the moment at the Adelphi was the play I thought he would like, and, after passing by mentally my clubs, because he might not care to be the one man in morning dress among a white-cravated crowd, and the "smart" restaurants for the same reason, and also because nothing but brute force would keep a maître d'hôtel from putting anà laon the menu, the happy thought came to me that at the Blue Posts the fare would suit my guest well.
I went down in the early afternoon through the Burlington Arcade, with its scent of perfumers' shops and its Parisian jewellery, into Cork Street, where the tavern hides itself modestly.
I have but vague remembrances of the old house which was burned down. To-day, if one did not know that the house holds still to its reputation of being one of the very best places where old-fashioned British food is to be obtained, it might, with its tiled floors, its stained-glass windows and doors, its wall-papers of quiet artistic shades, its electric light, be one of those small restaurants where the Parisian art of cooking is cultivated. Past the stained-glass doors leading into the wine-bars, upstairs and into the dining-room, sacred to the male sex, with its six or seven little square tables, and two round ones, I went, there to find Frank, the head waiter, not yet in his evening garb, sitting and reading a paper. Frank, who, with his white moustache and whiskers and white hair parted in the centre, has still about him a suggestion of the soldierwho fought under the old Emperor William, has been for fifteen years head waiter at the Posts, and is a person to be confided in; so I told him particulars as to the old gentleman who was to be my guest, and asked for suggestions. The bill of fare, on a long slip of paper, which Frank put into my hand would have gladdened the old gentleman's heart. There was not anà laon it—not a word of French, "saucetartare" excepted, and entrées were rigorously excluded. Frank advised soup, saying that all the soups were made from stock, no sauces of any kind being used; but I mistrust the Britannic soup, for we are not a nation of soupmakers, and would have none. "Grilled or fried?" was the question as to the fish, and after due discussion I ordered a grilled sole. I was all for a porterhouse steak, but at this Frank put his foot down. Rump steaks were the specialty of the house, he said, and explained how the cook kept the great joint of beef intact, only cutting a steak just before he put it on the grill, and this being so, a rump steak it had to be, with potatoes in their jackets, a salad, and cauliflower. Marrow-bones completed the dinner. For wine I ordered a bottle of Beaune supérieur and a pint of port.
At 7.45 to the second my old gentleman, his clean-shaven, ruddy face bringing a breath of country air with it, appeared, and as we sat at our table and waited for the sole, of which the cook had started the cooking as soon as I set foot within the dining-room, I was given much information as to the hackneys, told of some marvellous runs that the county hounds had hadlately, and was lectured on the iniquity of the farmers wiring their fences. Then we looked at the room and the company. The proof print of the coronation of Her Majesty which hangs on the soft green-coloured wall was approved of as being patriotic, the frieze with its little tablets bearing the names of authors and composers and the stained-glass windows and skylight were considered Frenchified, and the Parian statuettes on the mantelpiece were dismissed as fal-lals. I wished that some of the stately bucks, habitués of old days, had been dining there—Mr. Weatherby in his blue coat and brass buttons, and a great publisher with his black satin stock; for the young gentlemen who sat at the other tables, most of them in dress clothes, though irreproachably correct, were not picturesque.
Frank brought the sole, piping hot, still sizzling, from the bars. The cook had given it the necessary squeeze of lemon, and, watching my guest, I could see that the first item of my dinner was a success. The Beaune, warmed to just the right temperature, was as good a Burgundy as a man could wish with his dinner. Then came the steak, not a thin slab of meat, but a fine, impressive solid mass of beef, great of depth and size, the typical dish for Englishmen. I cut it, and in the centre there was the ruddy flush which is as pleasing to the devout diner as the blush on a maiden's cheek is to the devout lover. The great potatoes, cooked in their skins, were so hot that they burned our fingers, the cauliflower was excellent, and there was a delicious beetroot salad powdered with springonion. "Damme!" said the old gentleman, "they understand what a steak is, here." Then came the marrow-bones, each swathed in its napkin with its attendant square of toast leaning up against it. Now the first essential in a marrow-bone is that it should be hot, and the second that it should contain at least a fair amount of marrow. Our bones were so hot that they could hardly be held in spite of the protecting napkin, and from each gushed forth a flood of the steaming delicacy.
We sat and sipped our port, and trifled with a Cheddar cheese. My old gentleman had objected to the waiters in such a Britannic house being of foreign birth; but I comforted him by telling him of the battles against the French in which Frank had taken part, and of the history of his maimed hand. "Fought the French, did he?" said the old gentleman. "That's good. Damme, that's very good!" He had put a date to the port, and opened his eyes when I told him how little I was charged for it. Indeed, all the items of my bill were small. Dinners, 10s. 6d.; Burgundy, 7s.; port, 5s. 6d.; total, £1: 3s.
"I hope you have not dined badly?" I asked my guest as we rose to take cab for the Adelphi. "Well, my boy;verywell," said the old gentleman.
15th March.
The little curly-headed, light-haired page, who is the modern Mercury, in that he gives warning when one is rung up at the telephone in the club, came to me in the reading-room and told me that a lady at the Hotel Cecil wished to speak to me.
"Hullo! Are you there?" was answered by a "Yes" in a lady's voice, and in a few seconds I was informed that Myra Washington was in London, that she would like to see me, that she would be busy all the afternoon shopping, but that if I was not otherwise engaged I might take her out to dinner and to a show afterwards.
Mrs. Washington is a lady whom it is a liberal education to have the honour of being acquainted with, for she knows most people who are worth knowing in Europe, has been to most places worth seeing, and is in every way cosmopolitan. She is generally taken for a Russian, until she speaks, chiefly, I think, because of her hair, which is so light that it isalmost white, and because she smokes cigarettes at every possible moment. She is to be found in Paris, where she has a flat in one of the avenues branching from the Arc de Triomphe, and where she is kind enough, most years, to give medéjeuneron the morning of the Grand Prix. But her movements are always erratic. I first made her acquaintance at Suez, where I had the honour to be recorded on the tablets of her memory as having delivered her from some impertinent Arab hawkers, and she showed me what American hospitality is during the exhibition at Chicago, in which city her husband, John P. Washington, is always making or losing fortunes in the wheat pit.
I was glad, therefore, to hear the pretty lady's voice again, even though filtered through a telephone, and I proposed innumerable plans to her. She had come to London from Cannes to meet John, who was running over from America for a couple of days on business, and wanted to do as much as possible in the shortest time. She had been to the Gaiety after dining at the Savoy her first night in London, had lunched at Willis's and seen a matinée at Daly's, dined at the Princes' Hall and spent the evening at the Palace on the second, and now I was to be responsible for her evening's amusement on the third evening.
Did she know Verrey's? And as a reply I was asked whether I thought she knew her own name. Then would she dine with me at the restaurant in Regent Street, and I would have a box for her at the Empire afterwards? and Mrs.Washington said she would. "If I may, I will come and call for you at a little before eight," I said promptly, and Mrs. Washington wanted to know whether there were bandits in Regent Street. Eventually, I was told that if I was cooling my feet in the entrance at 8 to a second I should have the felicity of helping her out of her cab.
To give Mrs. Washington a satisfactory dinner is not one of the easiest things in the world, for she understands the art of dining, and is, as well, a most excellent cook herself when she chooses; so it was with a full sense of the responsibility I had incurred that I sought Mr. Krehl, the elder of the two brothers in whose hands Verrey's now is, and found him in the café. He knew Mrs. Washington, of course, and hearing that it was she who was to be my guest, he called in his brother Albert, almost a twin in resemblance to him, who now devotes all his time to the management of the restaurant, and we held a solemn council of three. I am a very strong believer myself in small dinners, but it was difficult to make up a menu which would be sufficiently substantial, without appearing gluttonous, for two. I held out against the second entrée; but the sense of the house was distinctly against me, and thepouding Saxonwas an addition that I did not approve of, but gave in, being outvoted. This was the dinner that we settled on before I started home to dress:—
Petite marmite.Œufs à la Russe.Soufflé de filets de sole à la Verrey.Timbale Lucullus.Noisettes d'agneau à la Princesse.Petits pois à la Française.Pommes Mirelle.Aiguillettes de caneton à l'Orange.Salade Vénétienne.Pouding Saxon.Salade de fruits.
Mrs. Washington, enveloped in a great furry white cloak, and with a lace covering to her head, was punctual to the second, and as we settled down to our table in the dining-room, with its silver arches to the roof, caught and reflected a hundred times by the mirrors, and its suave dark-green panels, which formed an excellent background to the cream-coloured miracle of a dress that Mrs. Washington was wearing, she told me a few of the events of the last few weeks. She had stayed in New York for the second Assembly, and had gone from New York to the Riviera, where Cannes had been her headquarters, and I incidentally was given full particulars as to doings of the ladies' club there. Now, pausing for one night in Paris to see the new Palais Royal piece, which is a play, so Mrs. Washington says, that no respectable girl could take her grandmother to see, she had run over to England to meet John, and afterwards was going to leisurely travel to Seville, getting there in time for the Holy Week processions.
The soup, admirably hot, had been placedbefore us by the waiter, in plain evening clothes, while Mrs. Washington talked and pulled off her long white gloves, and before using her spoon she took in the company dining at the many little square tables, lighted by wax red-shaded candles, in one comprehensive glance; smiled to the well-known journalist whose love for dogs forms a bond between him and the Messrs. Krehl, themselves powers in the dog world; thought that the ruddy-haired prima donna looked well and showed no signs of her recent illness; wanted to know if it was true that the celebrated musician, who was dining with his wife, was to be included in the next birthday list of honours; and nodded to a gentleman with long black whiskers, her banker in Paris, who was entertaining a party of a dozen.
Theœufs à la Russe, with their attendantvodkhi, met with Mrs. Washington's approval: there were no flies on them, was her expression. We did not quite agree as to thesoufflé, I daring to say that though the fish part of the dish was admirable I thought thesoufflécovering might have been lighter, a statement which my guest at once countered, and, by her superior knowledge of culinary detail reduced me to silence, overcome but certainly not convinced. As to thetimbale, with its savoury contents of quenelles, foie gras, cocks'-combs, and truffles, there could be no two opinions; it was excellent, and the same might be said of thenoisettes, each with its accompanyingfond d'artichaut, and the new peas with a leaf of mint boiled with them. Mrs. Washington would have preferredpommes souffléestopommes Mirelle, but I could hardly have known that when ordering dinner. The Venetian salad, a little tower of many-coloured vegetables, looking like poker chips, Mrs. Washington said, peas, beans, truffles, potatoes, beetroot, flavoured by a slice ofsaucissonand dressed with whipped white of eggs, was one of the triumphs of the dinner, and so was thesalade de fruits. For Mrs. Washington to praise a fruit salad is a high honour, for she is one of the favoured people for whom François, late of the Grand Hotel, Monte Carlo and now of the Hotel Cecil, deigns to mix one with his own hands. The gourmets of Europe say that as a salad maker no man can approach François. I personally uphold the fruit salads that Frederic, of the Tour d'Argent, makes as being perfection, but Europe and America vote for François. I was told that thepouding Saxonwas an unnecessary item, and I was rather glad, for I had shied at it when ordering dinner.
I reminded Mrs. Washington, who was sipping her Perrier-Jouët lazily, that the Empire ballet begins comparatively early, and to be in time for it, which she insisted on, we had to hurry over our coffee (which is always admirable at Verrey's) and liqueurs, and the cigarette, which is a necessary of life to the lady. Then, while Mrs. Washington drew on the long white gloves again, I paid the bill:—hors-d'œuvre, 1s.; potage, 1s. 6d.; poisson, 3s.; entrées, 2s. 6d. and 3s.; pommes, 6d.; légumes, 1s.; rôti, 10s. 6d.; salade, 1s.; entremets, 3s.; café, 1s.; liqueur, 2s.;cigarettes, 2d.; Perrier-Jouët, 1889, 13s.; total, £2: 4: 2.
22nd March.
I asked Mr. Albert Krehl to give me an idea of any special dishes which Verrey's is proud of, and pausing by the way to tell me how the house has always tried to wean its patrons from the cut from the joint at déjeuner time, and to induce them to eat small and light dinners, he said that entremet ices were one of the delights that Verrey's prides itself on, dwelt lovingly on a description of anentrecôte Olga, and then reeled offœufs à la Russe, omelette foies de volaille, sole Polignac, filets de sole à la Belle Otero, glace Trianon, sole à la Verrey,which has a flavouring of Parmesan,moules à la Marinière, poulet Parmentier en casserole.
If the Messrs. Krehl counsel small dinners in the salle, they do not always do so for the private rooms upstairs. This is the menu of a dinner at which H.R.H. the Prince of Wales was present:—
Œufs à la Kavigote(Vodkhi).Bisque d'écrevisses. Consommé Okra.Rougets à la Muscovite.Selle de mouton de Galles.Haricots panachés. Tomates au gratin.Pommes soufflées.Timbale Lucullus.Fonds d'artichauts. Crème pistache.Grouse.Salad Rachel.Biscuit glacé à la Verrey.Soufflé de laitances.Dessert.
Mr. Krehl gave me therecetteof thetimbales à la Lucullus. Here it is—
La garniture Lucullus se compose de: crêtes de coq, rognons de coq, truffes en lames, quenelles de volaille truffées, champignons, foie gras dans une demi-glace bien réduite, un filet de madère, et un jus de truffes.