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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 Chas. Heidsieck, 1904.
Moët et Chandon, 1904.
Château Branaire Ducru, 1900.
Dow's 1890 Port.
Courvoisier's 1831 Brandy.
The menu, according to custom immemorial, is decorated with the
crests of the regiment, with the date of its raising, 1572, and with a
little picture of the uniform of the regiment in the year 1684, when
the full privates wore black boy-scout hats, bands such as barristers
still wear, and coats with very long skirts.
Twenty years ago no regimental dinner could have been held
without interminable speeches, which were sometimes listened to
with scant patience by the subalterns, who wanted to get to the
Empire or the Alhambra before the performance ended. Nowadays
there are no speeches, at all events at our dinner, and the only toast
proposed is that of "The King." After this loyal toast has been drunk
and the cigars lighted, all formality vanishes, every man moves from
his place and goes to talk to those of his old friends who have been
out of earshot during dinner; the subalterns make inquiries as to
whether the Cabaret Club or the Four Hundred Club is the most
amusing place in which to keep awake after all the restaurants are
shut, and as eleven o'clock comes some of the guests go off to the
Service clubs, some have to catch last trains, and the
commissionaire downstairs has a busy time whistling for taxis.
There is not much ancient history to delve into with regard to the
Trocadero Restaurant. Part of it stands on the ground which, when
Great Windmill Street was a cul-de-sac, before Shaftesbury Avenue
was made, was occupied by the Argyle Dancing Rooms, familiarly
known as "The Duke's." "The Duke's" played its part in the night life
of London in the sixties and seventies, when Kate Hamilton's and the
other night houses still existed in the Haymarket, and though there
were occasional rows there, some of the officers of one of the
Household cavalry regiments being on one occasion marched off to
the police station, it was on the whole a well-conducted
establishment, with an admirable orchestra to play dance music. But
the spasm of morality which passed over London towards the end of
the last century swept the Argyle Rooms out of existence, and their
proprietor, Mr "Bob" Bignell, converted the vacant rooms into the
Trocadero Music Hall. Mr "Sam" Adams was the next proprietor of
the music-hall, and then Mr Joseph Lyons, who was not yet a knight,
saw the possibilities of the site for a restaurant, and gave a very
large price for the old hall. The Trocadero Restaurant, when it first
was built, was only half as large as it is now, for that red-brick
portion of it which faces Shaftesbury Avenue was a nest of flats and
chambers, and the conversion of this building when Lyons &
Company bought it, into restaurant premises, was an architectural
feat. Where the old building ends and the additions begin can be
clearly seen by the difference in the architecture.
It is a curious fact that Sir Joseph Lyons, the head and mainspring of
the great organisation which controls the scores of restaurants and
hundreds of tea-shops belonging to Lyons & Company, wished in his
youthful days to be an artist, and that his amusement now,
whenever he has any leisure, which he rarely has, is to paint
sunsets.

XX

"JOLLY GOOD"

A HALF-GUINEA DINNER AT THE TROCADERO

No account of the Trocadero would be complete without an allusion

to the table d'hôte dinners which are served in the great hall of the
restaurant, and I do not think that I can do better than reprint the
account of a half-guinea dinner I gave there some ten years ago to a
small Harrow boy. The Mr Lyons of the article is now Sir Joseph, and
I fancy that the Messrs Salmon, who are now County Councillors and
members of many other important bodies, are too busy to show
even such an important person as a young Harrovian all the glories
of the restaurant. But in all essentials the half-guinea dinner of to-
day at the Trocadero is much as it was ten years ago. It was
excellent then and is excellent now.

I dined one day early last week at the Trocadero, a little specially
ordered tête-à-tête dinner over which the chef had taken much
trouble—his Suprêmes de sole Trocadéro and Poulet de printemps
Rodisi are well worth remembering—and while I drank the Moët '84,
cuvée 1714, and luxuriated in some brandy dating back to 1815, the
solution of a problem that had puzzled me mildly came to me.
An old friend was sending his son, a boy at Harrow, up to London to
see a dentist before going back to school, and asked me if I would
mind giving him something to eat, and taking him to a performance
of some kind. I said "Yes," of course; but I felt it was something of
an undertaking. When I was at Harrow my ideas of luxury consisted
of ices at Fuller's and sausages and mashed potatoes carried home
in a paper bag. I had no idea as to what Jones minor's tastes might
be; but if he was anything like what I was then he would prefer
plenty of good food, combined with music and gorgeousness and
excitement, to the most delicate mousse ever made, eaten in
philosophic calm. The Trocadero was the place; if he was not
impressed by the dinner, by the magnificence of the rooms, by the
beautiful staircase, by the music, then I did not know my Harrow
boy.
Jones minor arrived at my club at five minutes to the half-past
seven, and I saw at once that he was not a young gentleman to be
easily impressed. He had on a faultless black short jacket and
trousers, a white waistcoat, and a tuberose in his buttonhole. I
asked him if he knew the Trocadero, and he said that he had not
dined there; but plenty of boys in his house had, and had said that it
was jolly good.
When we came to the entrance of the Trocadero, an entrance that
always impresses me by its palatial splendour, I pointed out to him
the veined marble of the walls and the magnificent frieze in which
Messrs Moira and Jenkins, two of the cleverest of our young artists,
have struck out a new line of decoration; and when I had paused a
while to let him take it in I asked him what he thought of it, and he
said he thought it was jolly good.
Mr Alfred Salmon, in chief command, and the good-looking maître
d'hôtel, both saw us to our table, and a plump waiter whom I
remember of old at the Savoy was there with the various menu
cards in his hand. The table had been heaped with roses in our
honour, and I felt that all this attention must impress Jones minor;
but he unfolded his napkin with the calm of unconcern, and I
regretted that I had not arranged to have the band play "See the
Conquering Hero Comes" and have a triumphal arch erected in his
honour.
I had intended to give him the five-shilling table d'hôte meal; but in
face of this calm superiority I abandoned that, skipped the seven-
and-six table d'hôte as well, and ordered the half-guinea one. I had
thought that three-and-sixpennyworth of wine should be ample for a
growing boy, but having rushed into reckless extravagance over the
food I thought I would let him try seven-and-sixpenny worth of
wine. I personally ordered a pint of 277, which is an excellent wine. I
told Jones minor that the doctor told me not to mix my wines, and
he said something about having to be careful when one got old that
I did not think sounded at all nice.
While we paused, waiting for the hors d'œuvre, I drew his attention
to all the gorgeousness of the grand restaurant, the cream and gold,
the hand-painted ceiling-panels, on which the cupids sport, the
brocades and silks of the wall-panels, the broad band of gold of the
gallery running round the room, the crimson and gold draperies, the
glimpse of the blue and white and gold of the salon seen through
the dark framing of the portières; I bade him note the morocco
leather chairs with gold initials on the back, and the same initials on
the collars of the servants. It is a blaze of gorgeousness that recalls
to me some dream of the Arabian Nights; but Jones minor said
somewhat coldly that he thought it jolly good.
We drank our potage vert-pré out of silver plates, but this had no
more effect on Jones minor than if they had been earthenware. I
drew his attention to the excellent band up above, in their gilded
cage. I pointed out to him amidst the crowd of diners two ex-Lord
Mayors, an A.D.C. to Royalty, the most popular low comedian of the
day, a member of the last Cabinet, our foremost dramatic critic and
his wife, and one of our leading lawyers. Jones minor had no
objection to their presence, but nothing more. The only interest he
showed was in a table at which an Irish M.P. was entertaining his
family, among them two Eton boys, and towards them his attitude
was haughty but hostile.
So I tried to thaw him while we ate our whitebait, which was
capitally cooked, by telling him tales of the criminal existence I led
when I was a boy at Harrow. I told him how I put my foot in the
door of Mr Bull's classroom when it was being closed at early
morning school time. I told him how I took up alternate halves of
one exercise of rule of three through one whole term to "Old Teek."
I told him how I and another bad boy lay for two hours in a bed of
nettles on Kingsbury race-course, because we thought a man
watching the races with his back to us was Mr Middlemist. And I
asked him if Harrow was likely to be badly beaten by Eton in the
coming match at Lord's.
This for a moment thawed Jones minor into humanity. Harrow, he
said, was going to jolly well lick Eton in one innings, and before the
boy froze up again I learned that the Headmaster's had beaten some
other house in the final of the Torpid football matches, and several
other items of interesting news.
The filets mignons, from his face, Jones minor seemed to like; but
he restrained all his emotions with Spartan severity. He did not
contradict me when I said that the petites bouchées à la St-Hubert
were good; but he ate three sorbets, and looked as if he could tackle
three more, which showed me that the real spirit of the Harrow boy
was there somewhere under the glacial surface, if I could only get at
it.
Mr Lyons, piercing of eye, his head-covering worn a little through by
the worries of the magnitude of his many undertakings, with little
side-whiskers and a little moustache, passed by, and I introduced
the boy to him, and afterwards explained the number of strings
pulled by this Napoleon of supply, and at the mention of a "grub
shop in every other street" Jones minor's eyes brightened.
When Jones minor had made a clean sweep of the plate of petits
fours, and had drained the last drops of his glass of Chartreuse, I
thought I might venture to ask him how he liked his dinner, as a
whole. This was what he had conscientiously eaten through:
Hors d'œuvre variés.
Consommé Monte Carlo. Potage vert-pré.
Petites soles à la Florentine. Blanchailles au citron.
Filets mignons à la Rachel.
Petites bouchées à la St-Hubert.
Sorbet.
Poularde de Surrey à la broche.
Salade saison.
Asperges nouvelles. Sauce mousseux.
Charlotte russe.
Soufflé glacé Pompadour.
Petits fours. Dessert.
He had drunk a glass of Amontillado, a glass of '89 Liebfraumilch,
two glasses of Deutz and Gelderman, a glass of dessert claret, and a
glass of liqueur, and when pressed for a critical opinion, said that he
thought that it was jolly good.
Impressed into using a new adjective Jones minor should be
somehow. So, with Mr Isidore Salmon as escort, I took him over the
big house from top to bottom. He shook the chef's hand with the
serenity of a prince in the kitchen at the top of the house, and
showed some interest in the wonderful roasting arrangements
worked by electricity and the clever method of registering orders. He
gazed at the mighty stores of meat and vegetables, peeped into the
cosy private dining-rooms, had the beauties of the noble Empire
ballroom explained to him, and finally, in the grill-room, amid the
surroundings of Cippolini marble and old copper, the excellent string
band played a gavotte, at my request, as being likely to take his
fancy.
Then I asked Jones minor what he thought of it all, and he said that
he thought it jolly good.
I paid my bill: Two dinners, £1, 1s.; table d'hôte wine, 7s. 6d.; half
277, 7s.; liqueur, 2s. 6d.; total, £1, 18s.; and asked Jones minor
where he would like to go and be amused. He said he had heard
that the Empire was jolly good.

XXI

IN THE SHADOW OF THE PALACE THEATRE

KETTNER'S LE DINER FRANÇAIS

I know as a result of my early training in Miss Woodman's school for

the "sons of the nobility and gentry" in Somerset Street, off Orchard
Street, that a piece of land almost entirely surrounded by water is
called a peninsula. But I was never instructed in any school as to
there being a special name for a theatre almost entirely surrounded
by restaurants. If there is such a name it should be applied to the
Palace Theatre, for restaurants have sprouted up about it just as
grass grows round the foot of a tree.
Of this group of restaurants two at least that I know deserve special
mention, one as having been the pioneer of clean restaurant
kitchens and the other, a very cheap restaurant, as having made the
fortune of one restaurateur and of being in the course of making the
fortune of his successor. Kettner's, in Church Street, was the first
small restaurant that dared to show its kitchen to all comers at a
time when the kitchens of most little foreign restaurants were places
of horror. M. Auguste Kettner was a chef who had learned his art in
his native country, and who, as an investment of his savings, started
a small restaurant, in 1867, in Church Street, Soho. Those were the
days before Shaftesbury Avenue was driven through the slums,
before Cambridge Circus was made, before the Palace Theatre was
built, and when Soho was a maze of little streets. So puzzling to a
stranger was its geography that the district inspired W. S. Gilbert to
write a "Bab" ballad concerning Peter the Wag, the policeman with a
taste for practical jokes who always sent the people who asked the
way of him in the wrong direction. Retribution came to Peter when
he lost his way near Poland Street, Soho.
"For weeks he trod his self-made beat,
Through Newport—Gerrard—Bear—Greek—Rupert—Frith—Dean—
Poland Streets,
And into Golden Square."
Kettner's was discovered by a correspondent of The Times, and the
readers of the Thunderer, which in those days took very meagre
notice of the amusements and enjoyments of life, were surprised to
be told of a little restaurant in the centre of Soho where the kitchen
was as clean as a new pin and where excellent food was to be
obtained at surprisingly cheap prices. That article made the fortune
of Kettner's just as other articles in less august papers have made
since then the fortunes of other restaurants. Journalists, artists and
actors, the swallows who herald prosperity, came to the restaurant,
and George Augustus Sala, the author, who was a fin gourmet, with
a knowledge of the practical side of cookery as well, became the
great patron of the restaurant.
In the early seventies, as a young subaltern with a microscopic
income and a desire to make it stretch as far as possible, I used
often to dine at Kettner's. It was a real chef's restaurant in those
days, an à la carte establishment where one ate one or two dishes
quite admirably cooked, and where a walk through the kitchen and
an inspection of the larder always preceded or followed a dinner. I
never hurried over a meal to be in time for the rising of the curtain
at a neighbouring theatre, for there were no neighbouring theatres
then, but enjoyed my dinner to the uttermost. M. Kettner then was
so successful in business that he was gradually absorbing house
after house, and his restaurant, instead of being in one little house,
occupied the ground floor of several houses, doors being driven
through the party walls. The private rooms on the first floor were
favourite dining places of couples who wished to be tête-à-tête, and
I fancy that when the popularity of such little dinners at restaurants
was dimmed it was a blow to the restaurant in Church Street. I have
always thought myself that the almost entire disappearance of the
small private dining-room from restaurants coincided with the
building of innumerable houses of flats, and that the dinners which
used to be given in the cabinets particuliers are now eaten in flats.
In 1877 two events of great importance to M. Kettner happened: he
wrote his "Book of the Table" and he died. His table book, of which a
second edition has recently been published, is a curious mixture of
very useful recipes and scraps of information concerning all matters
under the sun that can in any way be connected with cookery.
Achilles, for instance, is brought into the book that reference may be
made to the Achilles statue in Hyde Park, and then to the great Duke
of Wellington, of whom the story is told that his cook, Felix, left his
service in despair because the Duke could not distinguish between a
dinner cooked by an artist and one horribly mauled by a
kitchenmaid.
When at the height of his fame and prosperity M. Kettner died and
left a widow, and Madame Kettner, when her days of mourning had
passed, married M. Giovanni Sangiorgi, who also became her partner
in the business, a kindly man who keeps a watchful eye on the
restaurant which is now controlled by a company. The restaurant
was in comparatively late years rebuilt and an entrance hall given to
it, and the two rooms to the right of the hall were in 1913 very
tastefully redecorated, but it still retains its characteristic of being
several small houses joined together. The first sight that greets one's
eyes on entering the hall is a view of the kitchen, generally with a
cook in white clothing busy about his work as the centre of the
picture, and those who lunch and dine are, as of yore, asked to walk
through the white-tiled, beautifully clean domain of the chef. A grill-
room now forms part of the establishment, and the character of the
meals is changed in that table d'hôte dinners at various prices are
the trump cards of the establishment. I fancy that the propinquity of
the Palace, of the Shaftesbury Theatre, and now of the
Ambassadors' may have had a great deal to say to this change, for
when I dine at Kettner's before going to the Palace or the
Shaftesbury I can see that most of my fellow-guests are theatre-
goers. A three-and-six table d'hôte dinner in the grill-room and five-
shilling and seven-and-six ones in the restaurant are the early
evening meals of the establishment, and below is quite a fair
specimen of the menu of the five-shilling dinner. It is the one I ate
on the last occasion that I made a pilgrimage to see Madame
Pavlova dance. The quail was fat and tender, and the crème Victoria
a good soup:
Menu
Hors d'œuvre.
Consommé Bortsch.
Crème Victoria.
Turbotin Bercy ou Blanchaille.
Poulet Poëlé Derby.
Côtelette de Mouton Maréchale.
Pommes Nouvelles.
Caille Rôtie.
Salade.
Glacé de Moka.
But Kettner's now has to encounter many rivals, for young men such
as Kettner himself was when he made the fame of his restaurant are
following his example, and all the Soho district bristles with little
restaurants which give wonderfully good food for the small prices
they charge. Kettner's will always, however, be famous for showing
its clients a spotlessly clean kitchen when such kitchens were the
exception, and this excellent custom and example it maintains to-
day.
The other noticeable restaurant of this group is one founded by M.
Roche, which bears in large letters on its front "Le Dîner Français,"
and which occupies the ground floor of No. 16 Old Compton Street.
A story I have been told of the origin of the restaurant is rather
picturesque. M. Roche was a baker and pâtissier, and one day two
Frenchmen came into his shop and asked where they could get a
good French meal. M. Roche replied that he and his family were
about to eat their midday meal, and that if the strangers from his
native land cared to join them he would be delighted. The two
Frenchmen enjoyed their midday meal so thoroughly that they asked
to be allowed, during their stay in London, to take all their meals at
the bakery, paying their share, and M. Roche's establishment
gradually changed its character, becoming a full-blown restaurant.
That M. Roche served his apprenticeship under Frederic at the Tour
d'Argent in Paris does not militate against the probability of this
story. M. Roche, having made a fortune in Old Compton Street,
returned to France and bought an hotel near Granville. Le Dîner
Français, from which the establishment takes its name, was always
an eighteen-penny meal, and continued to be so under the present
proprietor, M. Béguinot, until the epidemic of "lightning strikes" came
in the spring of 1913, when, to cover the extra expense entailed by
giving cooks and waiters their weekly holiday, the price was raised to
one-and-nine. M. Roche always had the reputation of buying the
best material in the market, and M. Béguinot has maintained this
reputation. The restaurant at dinner-time is generally filled to its
holding capacity, and as many as four hundred dinners are
sometimes served on one evening. The restaurant is narrow, but it
runs far back, three rooms being thrown into one. The walls are of
cream colour, with a skirting of deep orange; the floor is covered
with oilcloth; the knives are black-handled, but cheapness in M.
Béguinot's establishment does not mean dirt, for everything is as
clean as clean can be, and the waiters, who all talk excellent English,
wear shirts and aprons as clean as the walls. Near the door in the
first of the rooms are two long tables, and at these any man who is
by himself takes a seat.
For one-and-nine one is given a choice of either hors d'œuvre or
soup, fish, an entrée and an entremet, and there is quite a
reasonable choice of dishes under each heading. I dined at M.
Béguinot's restaurant one Sunday night, and Sunday is by no means
a bad day on which to dine there, for the rooms are then less
crowded than on weekdays, and, sitting at one of the long tables, I
selected from the carte of the dinner cold consommé, fried sole,
sweetbread and spinach, and an ice. The consommé was reasonably
strong, the sole was really a little slip, but quite fresh and well fried;
the small sweetbread was excellent, and the diminutive portion of
ice was all that it should be. There was a liberal supply of bread on
the table, and the crisp sound of the cutting of the long yards of
bread at a side table was almost continuous throughout dinner.
When I had finished my meal I certainly did not feel full to repletion,
but it sufficed. My neighbour on one side of me had ordered a hors
d'œuvre, and the globule of butter given him with his two sardines
was a tiny one. He followed fish with fish, and I noticed that the
slice of cold salmon of a pale pink came from the tail end. He
followed my suit in ordering sweetbread, and finished his meal with
a tartlet. I was extravagant in my order for wine, for, passing over
the elevenpenny Graves and the next wine on the list, I recklessly
commanded a pint of Sauterne, which cost me 1s. 10d., so that my
bill came to 3s. 7d., and I got very good value for my money.
My fellow-guests on Sunday night were a selection from all the
respectable classes, little parties of ladies, married couples and that
contingent from the artistic colony which is always to be found in
every Soho restaurant.
 XXII

THE WELCOME CLUB

In the days when I was still an enthusiastic amateur actor, I was
once "cast" for the insignificant part of an aged peasant—the
organiser of the performance assured me that though there were
only a dozen lines in the part, it nevertheless "stood out"—and in a
smock-frock, a pair of second-best trousers tied up with hay-bands,
fishing boots, a bandana handkerchief round my neck, a long,
straggly white beard, a red nose and an old tall silk hat, brushed the
wrong way to give it the appearance of beaver, I depicted the rude
forefather of the village. I spoke in a trembling, squeaky voice and I
was addressed by the lads and lasses, yes, and even by the noble
old squire and by the black-browed villain, as "Granfer." The part did
not, apparently, stand out enough to catch the notice of our
audiences, but to those who played with me that drama of village
life I have remained "Granfer" to the present day, and every summer
I ask three of them, my Pet Grandchild, my Tiny Grandchild and
Little Perce to dine with me one evening at the Welcome Club and to
go the round of the side-shows afterwards, that being very much the
sort of entertainment that every real grandfather ought, I think, to
give his grandchildren.
I made my acquaintance with the Welcome Club in the year that it
was first built, at the beginning of all things at Earl's Court. Mr Alec
Knowles was the first secretary of the club. The idea of the Welcome
Club, of which distinguished foreigners could be made honorary
members, originated at the great Chicago Exhibition, in the grounds
of which there was a club of this name.
The trees that were planted in front of the lawn of the club have
grown to a good size now, but even more picturesque than the
formal lines of planes are the thorns and other old trees which were
on the ground before the makers of the exhibition gardens took
things in hand, and which were left there. Year after year, additions
and improvements have been made to the Welcome Club. What was
originally a dining-room and a lawn has become a club-house in a
garden. The long shelter, a pleasant place in which to dine on a
summer's evening, has been enlarged more than once, and now,
with its alcoves, each a tiny dining-room, with vines growing up its
supports and flower beds edging its railings, it pleases the eye of the
artist and architect as well as the eye of the diner. On the other side
of the club-house is a pretty drawing-room for ladies, and Time,
which always works in sympathy with a clever architect, has done its
share in deepening the colour of the tiles, in bringing the lawn to
velvety perfection, and in drawing up the young trees inch by inch.
Never before have the garden beds been so gay with flowers as they
were in 1913, and the interior of the club-house has been
brightened up to concert pitch.
To organise the staff of a club that is only open for four months in
the year is no easy matter, for the pick of maîtres d'hôtel and cooks
and waiters do not as a rule care to accept engagements that only
last for a third of a year. A club as far from its bases of supply as is
the Welcome cannot arrange its catering so easily as can clubs in the
centre of London, which have their fishmonger's and butcher's shops
just round the corner, and a wet or a cold night means almost empty
dining-rooms at Earl's Court. Difficulties, however, only exist to be
overcome, and Mr Payne, the chairman of the Earl's Court Company,
determined that it shall no longer be said that it is impossible to get
a good dinner in any exhibition, has brought all his energy to bear
on the problem, and with Mr Charles Bartlett, as secretary, with a
Bond Street firm of caterers responsible for the personnel and
material and with M. G. Thuillez in charge of the club kitchens, I
think that Mr Payne made good his promise. I certainly have never
before at the Welcome Club eaten a dinner so satisfactory in every
way as the one I gave one fine evening last July to my three
grandchildren.
I had written word to the secretary, an old friend, saying on what
evening I was coming to dine and asking him to give the manager a
hint whether to reserve for me a table in the dining-room or the
shelter, according to whether the evening was warm or cool. The
weather that day was fine, but the temperature kept about the
temperate line. As the manager was unable to guess whether the
ladies would find the shelter chilly and as there was that evening no
great rush for tables, he reserved until I should appear upon the
scene, a table for four in the dining-room and another for the same
number in one of the alcoves of the shelter.
When I came to the club, five minutes before the hour of dinner, I
opted at once for the table in the alcove, looked at the menus of the
table d'hôte dinners, one a five-shilling one and the other a seven-
and-six one, and chose the latter, ordered my wine, a magnum of
Krug, and then sat in one of the big wicker chairs on the lawn and
waited for my guests.
The scarlet-coated band of an infantry regiment had taken their
places in the band pavilion in the centre of the gravelled space and
the bandmaster was rapping on his music stand to command his
men's attention. There were already many people sitting on the
circle of seats which surrounds the pavilion. Away to the left men in
dress clothes and ladies in evening frocks were going in little parties
into the Quadrant Restaurant, and opposite to the Welcome Club,
with the breadth of the open space in between, there were groups
of men about the American bar and the tea pavilion. The great
tower, which is part of one of the mountain railways, loomed big to
the right, but the cars that run on the rails had for a time ceased to
rattle and splash through the stream of real water which forms part
of the scenery. The flying machines still farther to the right were also
still for the moment, the wire hawsers which support them looking
like the rigging of a ship. Presently I saw my three guests
approaching, having come into the gardens by the most westerly
entrance, and we were soon seated in the alcove, where an electric
lamp hung from the ceiling and another lamp on the table was
alight, though the sun had only just set. This was the menu of the
dinner that we ate:
Melon Rafraîchi.
Consommé Tosca.
Crème Bonne Femme.
Turbot Bouilli Sauce Homard.
Tournedos Doria.
Pommes Rosette.
Noix de Ris de Veau en Cocotte Demidoff.
Sorbet Mandarinette.
Caneton d'Aylesbury rôti au Cresson.
Salade Cœur de Laitue.
Glacé Comtesse Marie.
Friandises.
Dessert.
Our conversation naturally enough drifted on to stories of amateur
acting; but not until my Tiny Grandchild had first described a deed of
heroism she had done while staying at a country house. In the dead
of the night she heard a bell ring continuously, and assuming that
burglars were in the house and had carelessly set an alarm bell
ringing, she woke up her husband in the next room and proposed
that they should there and then rouse all the inmates of the house
and capture the burglars. But her husband looked at his watch and
as an amendment suggested that, as the ringing was probably an
alarum clock, set by a diligent housemaid, instead of alarming the
household it would be better for my T. G. to sleep out her beauty
sleep. We re-christened the daring lady "The Little Heroine" as we
supped our crème bonne femme and declared it to be good. With
the tournedos my imperfections of memory with respect to "words"
were cast into my teeth, and especially of a sentence. I introduced
into His Excellency the Governor, when, as Sir Montague, I declared
to Ethel that I would "dower her with the inestimable guerdon of my
love," words that Captain Marshall never wrote. And, further, it was
recalled that most of us who had played together in this comedy,
and its author, went one evening to see Mr H. B. Irving and Miss
Irene Vanbrugh and Mr Dion Boucicault and Mr Marsh Allen and
others play the comedy, and how a shout of delight went up from
our row of stalls and puzzled our neighbours sorely when Mr Irving,
primed, no doubt, by Captain Marshall, declared that he would
dower his Ethel with the "inestimable guerdon" of his love.
To change the subject I drew the attention of my three
grandchildren to their surroundings, for there are a few minutes of
supreme loveliness at the Welcome Club when the light is fading
from the western sky and all the electric lamps suddenly spring into
brilliancy. The tower of the mountain railway no longer appears to be
a thing of wood and canvas, but stands a great, dark, solid mass
against the sky, with the twinkle of some letters of electricity upon
its battlements. In the trees on the lawn, lamps, red and blue and
golden, shimmer like fireflies; all about the bandstand are garlands
of white light, and the flying machines, shadows dotted with
coloured light, go swinging round in the distance.
When we had finished our dinner we sat in contentment for a while
on the lawn, listening to the music of the band and drinking our
coffee, and then, as an aid to digestion, went in to The Hereafter
side-show, almost next door, where skeletons dance and a bridge
swings and rocks over a torrent of painted fire; and then on to the
booths where the china of "happy homes" can be broken up at a
penny a shot, where the two ladies did desperate execution against
the kitchen service. And next to the revolving cylinders, where we
watched enterprising young gentlemen stand on their heads
involuntarily, and to the variations on hoop-la stalls, at one of which
we all tried unsuccessfully to win watches. And on to the summer
ballroom; and to the bowl-slide; and finally, as the supreme
digestive, we all four went down the water chute, I taking the
precaution of leaving my tall hat below in charge of the gate man:
for one year going down this chute my Tiny Grandchild, being shot
into the air by the bump on the water, descended on my hat, which I
held in my hand, and turned it into a good imitation of an accordion.
 XXIII

GOLDSTEIN'S
Hors d'œuvre.
Smoked Salmon. Solomon Gundy.
Olives.

Soups.
Frimsell. Matsoklese.
Pease and beans.

Fish.
Brown stewed carp. White stewed gurnet.
Fried soles. Fried plaice.

Entrées.
Roast veal (white stew).
Filleted steak (brown stew).

Poultry.
Roast capon. Roast chicken.
Smoked beef. Tongue.

Vegetables.
Spinach. Sauerkraut.
Potatoes. Cucumbers.
Green salad.

Sweets.
Kugel. Stewed prunes.
Almond pudding.
Apple staffen.
When I looked at the above I groaned aloud. Was it possible, I
thought, that any human being could eat a meal of such a length
and yet live? I looked at my two companions, but they showed no
signs of terror, so I took up knife and fork and bade the waiter do his
duty.
The raison d'être of the dinner was this: Thinking of untried culinary
experiences, I told one of the great lights of the Jewish community
that I should like some day to eat a "kosher" dinner at a typical
restaurant, and he said that the matter was easily enough arranged;
and by telegram informed me that dinner was ordered for that
evening at Goldstein's and that I was to call for him in the City at
six.
When I and a gallant soul, who had sworn to accompany me
through thick and thin, arrived at the office of the orderer of the
dinner, we found a note of apology from him. The dinner would be
ready for us, and his best friend would do the honours as master of
the ceremonies, but he himself was seedy and had gone home.
On, in the pouring rain, we three devoted soldiers of the fork went,
in a four-wheeler cab, to our fate. The cab pulled up at a narrow
doorway, and we were at Goldstein's. Through a short passage we
went towards a little staircase, and our master of the ceremonies
pointed out on the post of a door that led into the public room of the
restaurant a triangular piece of zinc, a Mazuza, the little case in
which is placed a copy of the Ten Commandments. Upstairs we
climbed into a small room with no distinctive features about it. A
table was laid for six. There were roses in a tall glass vase in the
middle of the table, and a buttonhole bouquet in each napkin. A
piano, chairs covered with black leather, low cupboards with painted
tea-trays and well-worn books on the top of them, an old-fashioned
bell-rope, a mantelpiece with painted glass vases on it and a little
clock, framed prints on the walls, two gas globes—these were the
fittings of an everyday kind of apartment.
We took our places, and the waiter, in dress clothes, after a
surprised inquiry as to whether we were the only guests at the feast,
put the menu before us. It was then that, encouraged by the bold
front shown by my two comrades, I, after a moment of tremor, told
the waiter to do his duty.
I had asked to have everything explained to me, and before the hors
d'œuvre were brought in the master of the ceremonies, taking a
book from the top of one of the dwarf cupboards, showed me the
Grace before meat, a solemn little prayer which is really beautiful in
its simplicity. With the Grace comes the ceremony of the host
breaking bread, dipping the broken pieces in salt, and handing them
round to his guests, who sit with covered heads.
Of the hors d'œuvre, Solomon Gundy, which had a strange sound to
me, was a form of pickled herring, excellently appetising.
Before the soup was brought up, the master of the ceremonies
explained that the Frimsell was made from stock, and a paste of
eggs and flour rolled into tiny threads like vermicelli, while the
Matsoklese had in it balls of unleavened flour. When the soup was
brought the two were combined, and the tiny threads and the balls
of dough both swam in a liquid which had somewhat the taste of
vermicelli soup. The master of the ceremonies told me I must taste
the pease and beans soup which followed, as it is a very old-
fashioned Jewish dish. It is very like a rich pease-soup, and is
cooked in carefully skimmed fat. In the great earthenware jar which
holds the soup is cooked the "kugel," a kind of pease-pudding, which
was to appear much later at the feast.
Goldstein's is the restaurant patronised by the "froom," the strictest
observers of religious observances, of the Jewish community, and we
should by right only have drunk unfermented Muscat wine with our
repast, but some capital hock took its place, and when the master of
the ceremonies and the faithful soul touched glasses, one said
"Lekhaim," and the other answered the greeting with "Tavim." Then,
before the fish was put on the table, the master of the ceremonies
told me of the elaborate care that was taken in the selection of
animals to be killed, of the inspection of the butcher's knives, of the
tests applied to the dead animals to see that the flesh is good, of the
soaking and salting of the meat and the drawing-out of the veins
from it. The many restrictions, originally imposed during the
wandering in the desert, which make shell-fish, and wild game, and
scaleless fish unlawful food—these and many other interesting items
of information were imparted to me.
The white-stewed gurnet, with chopped parsley and a sauce of egg
and lemon-juice, tempered by onion flavouring, was excellent. In the
brown sauce served with the carp were such curious ingredients as
treacle, gingerbread and onions, but the result, a strong, rich sauce,
is very pleasant to the taste. The great cold fried soles standing on
their heads and touching tails, and the two big sections of plaice
flanking them, I knew must be good; but I explained to the master
of ceremonies that I had already nearly eaten a full-sized man's
dinner, and that I must be left a little appetite to cope with what was
to come.
Very tender veal, with a sauce of egg and lemon, which had a thin,
sharp taste, and a steak, tender also, stewed with walnuts, an
excellent dish to make a dinner of, were the next items on the
menu, and I tasted each; but I protested against the capon and the
chicken as being an overplus of good things, and the master of the
ceremonies—who, I think, had a latent fear that I might burst before
the feast came to an end—told the waiter not to bring them up.
The smoked beef was a delicious firm brisket, and the tongue,
salted, was also exceptionally good. I felt that the last feeble rag of
an appetite had gone, but the cucumber, a noble Dutch fellow,
pickled in salt and water in Holland, came to my aid, and a slice of
this, better than any sorbet that I know of, gave me the necessary
power to attempt, in a last despairing effort, the kugel and apple
staffen and almond pudding.
The staffen is a rich mixture of many fruits and candies with a thin
crust. The kugel is a pease-pudding cooked, as I have written above,
in the pease and beans soup. The almond pudding is one of those
moist delicacies that I thought only the French had the secret of
making.
Coffee—no milk, even if we had wanted it, for milk and butter are
not allowed on the same table as flesh—and a liqueur of brandy, and
then, going downstairs, we looked into the two simple rooms,
running into each other, which form the public restaurant, rooms
empty at nine p.m., but crowded at the midday meal.
Mr Goldstein, who was there, told us that his patrons had become so
numerous that he would soon have to move to larger premises, and
may by now have done so, and certainly the cooking at the
restaurant is excellent, and I do not wonder at its obtaining much
patronage.
What this Gargantuan repast cost I do not know, for the designer of
the feast said that the bill was to be sent to him.
I think that a "kosher" dinner, if this is a fair specimen, is a
succession of admirably cooked dishes. But an ordinary man should
be allowed a week in which to eat it.

XXIV

THE MITRE

AT HAMPTON COURT

We all know that in the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to
thoughts of love, but it is not such common knowledge that in the
early summer the thoughts of a man of mature age turn with equal
agility to duckling and green peas. And with duckling and green peas
I always associate the Mitre at Hampton Court. So it came to pass
that I asked a crony of like tastes to myself to meet me on a spring
Sunday at Hampton Court in the late afternoon, and suggested that
we should walk in the gardens of the Palace and see the
rhododendrons, which were then in great beauty, and that we
should afterwards dine at the Mitre, sup green pea soup and eat
duckling and green peas.
The Mitre is the most typically late Georgian, or early Victorian, inn
that I know of in the neighbourhood of London, and its great
attraction is that it has kept the old cookery, the old furniture, the
old pictures, the old china, the old plate, and last, but not least, the
old manners. It has been quite unconscious of the changes in the
outside world, it knows nothing of electric light and such newfangled
ideas, there are no French rolls to be found in its bread baskets, and
its ducklings are spitted and roasted before an open fire, being well
basted the while.
This, very briefly, is the history of the Mitre. It is the direct successor
of the Toy Inn, an old house which stood on Crown property, and the
lease of which expired about the year of the battle of Waterloo. The
Toy was pulled down, and Mr Goodman, and Mr Sadler with him,
were obliged to look for a new home in which to carry on the old
traditions. This they found in three houses standing together near
the wooden bridge (alas and alack that the picturesque old bridge
has given place to the dull-red iron horror which was built in 1865!),
and one of the charms of the Mitre is the quaint irregularity of its
architecture, the brown bricks and red tiles of its face turned
towards the Palace, its white face and slate roof on the river side,
the great wistaria and the ivy knitting together all the various
features.
And parenthetically I wish to protest against the hiding away of the
Mitre from the view of the people as they cross the bridge, or of
those who row or go by launch or river. Just in front of the Mitre
Hotel is an eyot, which I believe is Government property. The willows
on this have been allowed to grow so high that they entirely blot out
the view from the river of the white face of the Mitre, and the long
row of windows of its banqueting-room; and equally, of course, the
trees obstruct the view of the river from the delightful little bowling-
green with ivied arches which is between the hotel and the
backwater. If, whoever he is, the Government official who has this
eyot in his charge will walk across the Hampton Court bridge or sit
for ten minutes on the lawn before the Mitre he will, I am sure,
require no further prompting to order the pollarding of the trees.
Mr Goodman came to the three old houses and put up the name of
the Mitre in golden letters, and gave orders that the pillars that
support the great bow-window on the first floor should be painted as
though they were of very variegated marble, and with him from the
old inn he brought the little glass bow window which looks out from
the bar parlour into the Mitre hall, and he also brought with him all
the old Spode china from the Toy. Some of the original china is still
preserved at the Mitre, and whenever new plates and new dishes
are required Messrs Copeland, the successors to Spode, make them
in the old moulds, though those moulds are now wearing out; and
the plates from which the guests of to-day eat their lunches and
dinners are identical with those that came across the Green from the
Toy. After a while Mr Goodman moved on to the Whitehall Hotel, a
big white-faced house which looks out on to the Green, and which
abuts on Cardinal Wolsey's old stables, and Mr Sadler the First
reigned in his stead.
It was Mr Sadler the First who bought the old Sheffield plate which
makes such a brave show at the banquets at the Mitre, tureens in
which the soup comes to table, and the platters on which the fish is
served.
Six o'clock was the hour at which I had asked my crony to meet me
on the steps of the Mitre that we might consult together as to the
menu of our dinner, and I found him waiting for me chatting to Mr
Sadler, the elder of the two sons of Mr Sadler the First, and in the
background was Bagwell, the head waiter, who is a model to all
British head waiters. He has the appearance and the comforting
manner of a high dignitary of the Church, and I am quite sure would
wear knee-breeches and an apron and rosetted tall hat with as good
grace as any bishop in the land. The oldest inhabitants of Hampton
Court, when I have sung Bagwell's praises to them, have said to me:
"Ah, but you ought to have known Smith," the head waiter who
flourished some thirty years ago. But to them I reply that not having
known Smith it is a comfort to me to be acquainted with Bagwell.
Bagwell had on a card a suggested menu for our dinner, which ran
thus:—Green Pea Soup, Grilled Trout, Stewed Eels, Duckling and
Green Peas and New Potatoes, cold Asparagus and Gooseberry Tart.
The eels I looked upon as a superfluity, though they are one of the
dishes of the house and are kept alive in the hotel in tanks until the
moment comes for their sacrifice. I also parried the suggestion that
sweetbreads should be included, for I hold that a duckling, if he be a
good duckling, well roasted and filled with savoury stuffing, is so
good a dish that he requires no supplement of any kind.
When at seven we returned from our walk through the gardens of
the Palace a table had been spread for us in the bow-window,
whence the view of the river, and the house-boats, and the towing
path, and the walls of the Palace Gardens, and the big trees and the
old gates, is a very splendid thing. A quiet-footed, quiet-mannered
waiter was ready to attend on us, and on the table were the shining
cruets and a little loaf and a slab of beautiful butter, and to the tick
of half-past seven the soup in a plated tureen was put in front of
me.
The soup was excellently hot and of a strength unusual in a
vegetable soup. It had, I fancy, been laced with all manner of good
things. It made an excellent commencement to the dinner. The
trout, a fine salmon trout, of a beautiful pink, came straight up from
the grill on a plated dish, and with it the Tartar sauce in a plated
boat. When the cover was taken off from the duckling, set down
before me to carve, the sweet savour of good roasting and the
perfume of the stuffing gratified the sense of smell. And that
duckling was as tender as a duckling should be, and the peas were
large and cooked to the requisite degree of softness, and the apple
sauce was excellent. That our plates were the old Spode plates, soft
blue in their pattern, and that the knives and forks and spoons were
all of an old pattern, were all tiny points of enjoyment. The
asparagus was good green English asparagus, and the crust of the
gooseberry pie was of meringue-like lightness.
At the table to one side of us in the big bow sat a couple who were
also dining on duckling and drinking a bottle of champagne, for the
Mitre has an excellent cellar of wines at prices far below those of
London restaurants, and at the table on the other side were two
ladies and three men who had been on the river and had brought
river appetites and river good spirits to table with them. Farther back
in the room were other little parties of diners. I had asked host
Sadler some questions about the Masonic banquets which are held
in the red-walled rooms the windows of which overlook the bowling-
green, and after our dinner was finished he brought me a little sheaf
of menus of banquets, and he also brought a bottle of the old
Cognac of the house, which he was anxious that we should taste. I
looked through the menus, and the following of a banquet of the
Bard of Avon Lodge seemed to me to be that of a distinctly English
feast. It has in it the matelote of stewed eels and the braised
sweetbreads for which I did not find room in our little dinner for two:
Soup.
Purée of Asparagus. Spring.

Fish.
Grilled Trout. Sauce Tartare.
Stewed Eels en Matelote.

Entrée.
Braised Sweetbreads.

Removes.
Roast Fore Quarter of Lamb.
French Beans.
Ducklings. Peas.
Asparagus.

Sweets.
Gooseberry Foule. Cream.
Madeira Jellies.
 Iced Pudding.

Dessert.
My crony and I sat sipping the old brandy, talking at intervals, and
watching how the daylight gave place to the afterglow, how the
people on the towpath thinned in numbers to single figures, and the
homeward bound boats on the river became fewer and fewer. As the
light died out the river became a sheet of dull silver, and the colour
of the old brick walls of the Palace gardens and its out-buildings
grew to deeper and a deeper purple, and the great trees became
warm black silhouettes against the darkening sky and the lights in
the house-boats moored by the bank began to throw reflections into
the stream.
Everything, even a spring evening at Hampton Court, must come to
an end, and at last I called for my bill. The dinner was eight shillings
a head, and so moderate had we been in our summer beverages—
the old brandy was host Sadler's contribution—that the total came to
a sovereign.
We walked along the path up the river in the cool of the evening till
we could see the lights in Garrick's Villa, and then my crony and I
bade each other good-night and went our separate ways.

XXV

IN THE HANDS OF PI(E)RATES

THE CONNAUGHT ROOMS

When it was decided by the contributors to Printer's Pie to entertain

their editor, "The Pieman," a little committee of artists and writers,
with the editor of The Tatler as secretary, considered various plans
for giving Mr Hugh Spottiswoode a dinner with unusual
surroundings.

A decision was arrived at that the contributors to the Pie should

become Pi(e)rates, for one night only, and in that guise should
entertain the Pieman in a pirate haunt, and then the next question
was the choice of a dining place and the difficult matter of finding
the proprietor or manager of a restaurant who would enter
thoroughly into the spirit of the burlesque and would provide a real
pirate feast with blood-curdling piratical surroundings. A member of
the committee suggested Mr George Harvey, who controls the
Connaught Rooms in Great Queen Street, as the very man, and to
the next meeting of the committee Mr George Harvey came, quiet,
humorous and resourceful, and when he heard the outlines of our
scheme he smiled, and said that he thought he quite understood
what we wanted.
It was essential to the success of our little joke that the guest of the
evening should know nothing of the reception he would get, and
when the Pi(e)rates were informed that the dress of a bold
buccaneer was to be the wear at dinner at the Connaught Rooms,
they were entreated to keep this a secret from the Pieman.
Strangely enough, the secret was kept; he had no inkling of what
was going to happen to him. When, heralded by a commissionaire,
he came up the grand staircase of the restaurant, faultlessly attired
in his best evening clothes, he gave a jump when the Master-at-
Arms of the Pirates, attired in the levee uniform of a pirate king,
suddenly appeared before him with drawn cutlass and a ferocious
look, and told two stalwart members of the pirate gang to "Arrest
that man!"
If it would interest you to know who the pirates are, when they are
not pirating, you have only to look at the contents pages of Printer's
Pie and you can there read the list of the authors and artists who
were busy between seven and eight o'clock one Friday, in a little
room in Great Queen Street, transforming themselves from fairly
respectable members of society into the most shocking criminals
that ever went to sea. There were pirates of all kinds, all centuries
and all classes. There were gentlemen pirates with nickel-plated
revolvers; one pirate of particular ferocity from the Barbary Coast
had given himself an emerald-green complexion; another pirate, who
feared that his good-natured face might belie his costume, carried
on his breast a large placard with a photo on it for identification
purposes, and the legend "I am an [adjective] pirate." Some of the
pirates wore long false noses; many of them had the skull and
crossbones on their jerseys; cocked hats with feathers were quite
fashionable wear, and no belt had less than three pistols stuck into
it. One writer of humorous short stories came as an old growler
cabby, explaining that cabmen were the only pirates that he had
ever met. The chairman of the dinner, who had been selected for
that onerous post because, as the designer of the covers of all the
Printer's Pies he had always come first amongst its contributors, had
added an Afghan sheepskin coat to his other piratical garment—
luckily for him the night was very cold—and was attended by a
minor pirate, who carried on a long stick a triangular lantern as a
sign of authority.
When the pirates' prisoner was arrested he was requested to step
into a little boat on wheels, the doors of the ante-room were flung
wide open and the boat was dragged into the presence of the pirate
Captain, who stood in the centre of the room, with the pirate band
playing "Down Among the Dead Men" on silvered papier-maché
instruments to his left, and to his right the pirate crew flourishing
pistols and cutlasses. The little boat paused for a moment while the
pirates gave a blood-curdling boarding yell, and then continued its
career at hydroplane pace into the dining-room, with the pirates
following after.
The Crown Room had become a pirates' lair prepared for a feast.
The walls had been shut out by scenery representing sea and
mountain; the floor was an inch deep in sawdust; in the corners of
the room were plantations of palm-trees, with parrots in cages in the
midst of them. These parrots missed the opportunity of their lives,
for they were so stunned by the noise the pirates made at their meal
that they never uttered a single scream.
At one side of the pirates' lair was a great dhow, such as one sees
sailing in and out of Aden. It was really a stage for the band and the
after-dinner performers, but it had been converted into a dhow. In
its tall stern a piano was housed; it had high bulwarks, a tall mast
and a great lateen sail. From the mast-head flew the "Jolly Roger,"
and in the rigging was a huge red lantern.
A dozen round tables had been prepared for the pirates, with sheets
of brown paper laid on them as tablecloths. The room was lighted by
candles stuck into bottles and set on the tables. Of knives and forks
there were none apparent; the salt was great lumps of the rock
variety, the mustard was in teacups and the pepper in screws of
brown paper. The menu, which is reproduced at the head of this
chapter, was written with an inky stick on torn bits of brown paper,
and each pirate's place was marked for him by a card with blood
spots on it. Every table had a big card in a split cane set up to mark
a pirate locality. There were Skeleton Cove and Murder Gulch, Coffin
Marsh, Gallows' Hill, Cannibal's Creek, Dead Man's Rock and others,
and the ship's officers, the roll of which included the Stale Mate, the
Hangman, the Powder Monkey and the Ship's Parrot, presided each
at a table. The first mate sat next to the Captain, and it was his
business to wave a black flag over his great commander's head at
intervals, and to beat constantly a big drum which was concealed
under the table.
The waiters at the feast looked even greater ruffians than the
feasters, which is saying a great deal. They were the most shocking
set of criminals and marine cut-throats that ever carried a dish of
salt junk. Most of them had black eyes; their bare arms were
wondrously tattooed, and they all smoked short clay pipes as they
went about their work. The pirates, because of their superior station,
smoked long churchwardens, of which, and playing-cards, there was
a plentiful supply scattered about the tables. One waiter entered so
thoroughly into his part that he danced a little hornpipe as he took
round the dishes.
When the feast had commenced with oysters, the pirate waiters
suddenly produced a supply of knives and forks, and menus of what
the real dinner was. Below is the menu of the real dinner, and an
excellent dinner it was. Pirates who had known better days nodded
to each other approvingly across the table when they had eaten the
fish dish, which was exceptionally good. Mr George Harvey most
certainly has succeeded in regilding the faded glories of the
Freemasons' Tavern and in putting the Connaught Rooms, which is
the title of the rebuilt house, very firmly on the dining map of
London.
Huîtres Royales.
Consommé Excelsior.
Timbale de Sole Archiduc.
Poularde Hongroise.
Nouilles au Parmesan.
Noisette de Pré-Salé Montmorency.
Pommes Anna.
Faisan en Cocotte à la Truffe.
Salade Jolly Roger.
Jambon d'York au Champagne.
Poires St George.
Friandises.
Barquettes de Laitances.
Dessert.
Café Double.
The band, a real string orchestra, in white jackets, on the deck of
the dhow, played rag-time melodies and other inspiriting airs, and
occasionally made itself heard above the noise with which the
pirates settled down to their feast. The big drum was always in
action, and somewhere outside the hall a waiter shook a sheet of
theatre-thunder in a vain attempt to equal the noise of the drum
within; pistols were discharged in all parts of the lair, and the pirate
with an emerald-green complexion, whenever he thought the
Captain looked dull, walked over to his table and fired a pistol into
his ear to cheer him up. When this failed to attract the Captain's
attention, a large cracker was set fire to under his chair.
One of the groups of pirates, thinking that the band were having far
too peaceable a time, suddenly drew pistols and cutlasses, boarded
the dhow, and put the musicians to the sword, which delighted the
fiddlers very much. There was also dancing during the dinner, for
two of the pirates, wishing to give a real society touch to the
function, rose and performed a wild Tango in and out of the tables.
That was not the only dance, for a fat carver, who wore a conical
white cap and white garments plentifully besprinkled with gore, had
stood during the early stages of dinner and had looked on at the
pirates' antics, being much amused thereat. One of the pirates,
thinking that a spectator ought to have some share in the active
work of the fun, seized him and forced him to dance, and dance the
carver did, with such good will that he finally tired the pirate out,
and remained, perspiring and smiling, the victor in the dance.
When dinner was over the guest of the evening was tried by court-
martial. He was accommodated with a chair in the centre of the
room and given a cigar and a drink; a wide circle of candles in
bottles was put about him to give light to the proceedings, and all
the pirates sat in groups in the sawdust, the master-at-arms, with
drawn cutlass, behind the prisoner, the accuser, a picturesque
ruffian, and the prisoner's friend, an equally forbidding scoundrel,
and the pirate Captain being the only individuals standing up. This
grouping formed a really striking picture, and I have no doubt that
many artistic eyes took in its possibilities. The accusation brought
against the prisoner was that he had paid income tax (groans from
the pirates), that he was even suspected of paying super-tax (yells
of fury from the pirates), that he kept tame animals, notably Welsh
rarebits, and that he fed them. The pirate Captain had already
warned the prisoner that his sentence had been determined upon,
and therefore that it was no use for him, or anybody else on his
behalf, to plead his cause; but the prisoner's friend had a speech
ready, and loosed it off, making the case very much blacker against
his client than it had been before. Sentence was then duly
pronounced, but as the pirate Captain had mislaid the plank on
which the victim was to walk, and as the goldfish which were to
represent sharks had been left downstairs, the doom of the victim
resolved itself into the presentation to him of a pair of silver hand-
cuffs with a tiny watch at the end of one of them.
After the court-martial, the pirates gave themselves and their guest
an entertainment. One pirate sang admirably; another pirate, whose
name, I think, before he went to sea, was Walter Churcher, told
excellent stories, and a third pirate went through the whole
performance that the flashlight photographer inflicts on good-
natured diners, his apparatus being a whisky bottle and a tin mug,
and then handed round photographs he pretended to have taken of
our guest.
There was more fun to come, but as midnight was drawing near, and
as I belong now to the early-to-bed sect of sea-wolves, I departed
quietly. The lift boy at my flat, when he saw the brick-dust of my
marine complexion, said to me, as he took me up: "Good gracious,
sir, whatever has happened to your face?"
It was a great night altogether!

XXVI
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