ST JAMES'S PALACE
"The best dinner in London, sir!" was what our fathers always added when, with a touch of gratification, they used to tell of having been asked to dine on the Guard at St James's; and nowadays, when the art of dinner-giving has come to be very generally understood, the man who likes good cooking and good company still feels very pleased to be asked to dinner by one of the officers of the guard, for the old renown is still justified, and there is a fascination in the surroundings that is not to be obtained by unlimited money spent in any restaurant.
Past the illuminated clock of the Palace, the hands of which mark five minutes to eight, in through an arched gate, across one of the courts, and in a narrow passage where a window gives a glimpse of long rows of burnished pots and pans, is a black-painted door with, on the door-jamb, a legend of black on white telling that this is the officers' guard.
Up some wooden stairs with leaden edges to them, stairs built for use and not for ornament: and, the guests' coats being taken by a clean-shaved butler in evening clothes, we are at once in the officers' room.
It is a long room, lighted on one side by a great bow-window, flanked by two other windows. At the farthest end of the room from the door is a mantelpiece of grey and white marble. The walls are painted a comfortable green colour, and there are warm crimson curtains to the windows. There are many pictures upon the walls; and a large sofa, leather-covered arm-chairs, and a writing-table in the bow of the window give an air of comfort to the room. A great screen, which, in its way, is a work of art, being covered with cuttings of all periods, from Rowlandson's caricatures to the modern style of military prints, is drawn out from the wall so as to divide the room into two portions. On the door side of the screen stands in one corner the regimental colour of the battalion finding the guard, and here, too, are the bearskin head-dresses of the officers.
On the fireplace side of the screen is a table ready set for dinner, the clear glass decanters at the corners being filled with champagne, a silver-gilt vase forming the centre-piece, and candles in silver candelabra giving the necessary light. By the fireplace the officers of the guard, in scarlet and gold and black, are waiting to receive their guests.
In addition to the officers of St James's guard, the adjutant and colonel of the battalion that finds the guard, the two officers of the Household Cavalry on guard at the Horse Guards and some of the military officials of the Court have a right to dine. But it is rarely that all entitled to this privilege avail themselves of it, and the captain and officers of the guard generally are able to ask some guests to fill the vacant chairs.
As, on the stroke of eight, on the evening I am writing of, we sat down to dinner my host told me that he had ordered a typical meal for me. This was the menu:
Potage croûte-au-pot.
Eperlans à l'Anglaise.
Bouchées à la moëlle.
Côtelettes de mouton. Purée de marrons.
Poularde à la Turque.
Hure truffée. Sauce Cumberland.
Pluviers dorés.
Pommes de terre Anna.
Champignons grillés.
Omelette soufflée.
Huîtres à la Diable.
The spatchcocked smelts, the boar's head, with its sharp-tasting sauce, and the soufflée, I recognised as being favourite dishes on the King's Guard.
On this evening the wearers of the black coats, as well as the red, had served his Majesty, at one time or another, in various parts of the world, and our talk drifted to the subject of the various officers' guards all over the British world. In hospitality the castle guard at Dublin probably comes next to the guard at St James's, for the officers of the guard fare excellently there at the Viceregal expense. The Bank guards, both in the City of London and at College Green, have compensating advantages, and the officers' guard at Fort William, Calcutta, has helped many an impoverished subaltern to buy a polo pony. The story goes that some rich native falling ill close to the gate of Fort William, the subaltern on guard took him up to the guardroom and treated him kindly, and in consequence, in his will, the native left provision for a daily sum of rupees to be given to the subaltern on guard. These rupees are paid to the officer minus one, retained by the babus as a charge for "stationery," and though all the little tin gods both at Calcutta and Simla have exerted themselves to recover for the subaltern that rupee, the power of the babu has been too strong and the imaginary stationery still represents the missing rupee. We chatted of the Malta guard, with its collection of pictures on the wall; of dreary hours at Gibraltar, with nothing to do except to construct sugar-covered fougasses to blow up flies; and of exciting moments at Peshawar, when the chance of being shot by one's own sentries made going the rounds a real affair of outposts.
Then I asked questions about the gilt centre-piece, which is in the shape of an Egyptian vase with sphinxes on the base, and was told that the holding capacities of it were beyond the guessing of anyone who had not seen the experiment tried. Some of the other plate which is put upon the table at the close of dinner is of great interest. There is a cigar-lighter in the shape of a grenade given by his late Majesty King Edward, a silver cigar-cutter, a memento of an inter-regimental friendship made at manœuvres, and a snuff-box made from one of the hoofs of Napoleon's charger Marengo. Which hoof it was is not stated on the box, but the collective wisdom of the table decided that it must have been the near hind one. Excepting on days when the Scots Guards are on guard, the Sovereign's health is not, I believe, drunk after dinner—though I fancy that King Edward, when Prince of Wales, dining on guard, broke through this custom. The regiment from across the Border was at one time suspected of a leaning towards Jacobitism, and while the officers were ordered to drink his Majesty's health they were not allowed to use finger-glasses after dinner, lest they should drink to the King over the water.
Dinner over, the big sofa is pulled round in front of the fire and a bridge-table claims its devotees. I asked my host to be allowed to inspect the pictures which pretty well cover the walls. The most important is an excellent portrait of Queen Victoria in the early part of her reign. It is the work of "Lieut.-Col. Cadogan," and was begun on the wall of a guardroom—at Windsor, I fancy. The surface of the wall was cut off, the picture finished, and it now hangs, a fine work of art but a tremendous weight, in the place of honour. There is an admirable oil-colour of the old Duke of Wellington, showing a kindly old face looking down, a pleasant difference from the alert aquiline profile which most of his portraits show. There are prints of other celebrated generals, mostly Guardsmen, and an amusing caricature of three kings dining on guard. It is a very unfurnished guardroom, with a bare floor, in which their Majesties are being entertained, but the enthusiasm with which the officers are drinking their health makes up for the surroundings. A key to the print hangs hard by, but the names attached to the various figures are said to have been written in joke. Many of the pictures are sporting prints and hunting caricatures; but the original of Vanity Fair's sketch of Dan Godfrey is in one corner; and a strange old picture of a battle, painted on a tea-tray, hangs over the door.
On either side of the looking-glass, above the mantelpiece, are the list of officers on duties and the orders for the guard, the latter with a glass over them, which is supposed to have been cracked in Marlborough's time. Some very admirably arranged caricatures, with explanatory notes, are bound into a series of red volumes and kept in a glazed set of shelves, and these, with a number of blue-bound volumes of The Pall Mall Magazine, form the greater portion of the library available for the officers on guard.
As the hands of the clock near eleven, the butler, who has been handing round "pegs" in long tumblers, takes up his position by the door. Military discipline is inexorable, and we (the guests) know that we must be out of the precincts of the guard by eleven o'clock. We say good-night to our hosts, and as we go downstairs we hear the clank of swords being buckled on.
Outside in the courtyard a sergeant and a drummer and a man with a lantern are waiting for the officer to go the rounds.
[XXXI]
THE OLD BULL AND BUSH
There is no side of London life that has died out more completely, so far as the upper classes are concerned, than the visits to the old tea-gardens which used to be the resort of the well-to-do classes from the days of King Charles II. up to the beginning of the last century. Bagginnage Wells, to which Nell Gwynne first brought the bucks, is only a name now, but Coleman, in his comedy, Bon-ton, defined good tone as to
"Drink tea on summer afternoons
At Bagginnage Wells with china and gilt spoons."
Sadler's Wells was a tea-garden with a music-room before Rosoman pulled down the building to put up a theatre. White Conduit House used to take fifty pounds on a Sunday afternoon for sixpenny tea tickets, and its white bread was considered a great luxury. The bowling alleys of Marylebone Gardens were famous; and there were tea-gardens and a bowling-green at the Yorkshire Stingo, opposite Lisson Grove. Kilburn Wells advertised that its gardens and great room were adapted to the use of "the politest companies," and at Jenny's Whim there was a great garden, in different parts of which were recesses, and in a large piece of water facing the tea alcoves big fish and mermaids showed themselves above the surface. The Apollo Gardens in the Westminster Road, and Cuper's Gardens opposite Somerset House, were amongst these old places of amusement, most of which are now only names. There is, however, at the present time a tavern with tea-gardens of the old-fashioned kind quite close to London, which, besides its picturesqueness, has other recommendations which give it a right to inclusion in a "Gourmet's Guide."
The Bull and Bush at North End, Hampstead, which is the tavern to which I refer, has no very long history behind it. It was a farmhouse when Jack Straw's Castle and the Spaniards were inns with tea-gardens attached, the gardens of the latter house being laid out in the formal Dutch style, which became fashionable after the Revolution. Tradition has it that the Bull and Bush was at one time Hogarth's house, and Mr Austin Dobson, who garnered information from all quarters into his book on Hogarth, admits the claim of the house to this distinction, but thinks that it was a house to which Hogarth went for "a visit." There are long periods in Hogarth's life, before his father-in-law, Sir John Thornhill, forgave him for his elopement with his daughter and took the young pair to live with him in the family house in Covent Garden, of which no record has been kept, and I should like to imagine that the blue-eyed, bold young artist carried away the girl he loved to the farmhouse on the breezy common to spend their honeymoon there, and that he and she together planted the ring of fir-trees in the garden which are still called "Hogarth's firs." The house ceased to be a farm, and became a place of refreshment in later days, and W. H. Pyne (Ephraim Hardcastle), in his collection of essays, "Wine and Walnuts," tells of an imaginary excursion made to the Bull and Bush by a party which included Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gainsborough, Sterne and Garrick, and puts in Gainsborough's mouth praise of the creamy milk and the fine Dutch damask to be found at the little inn.
And the great Victorian painters and writers followed the example of their predecessors in going on jaunts to the Bull and Bush, for when Harry Humphries, a great favourite with all men of the pen and brush, was the host of the house, Dickens used to frequent it, and George Augustus Sala, Clement Scott and E. L. Blanchard, and those two great Punch artists, George du Maurier and Charles Keene, and many more of a like kidney.
There is no difficulty in finding the old inn to-day, for at the flagstaff and the pond which mark the western end of the long, bare backbone of the common (from which London can be seen below to the south in its veil of smoke, and on clear days the Surrey hills beyond, while to the north are the hills and fields of the great landscape that stretches from Harrow round to Hainault) the North End road plunges down, with common land, furze and undergrowth and big trees and grassy knolls to one side, and on the other old oaken park palings and big trees.
Just where the road first dips a blind fiddler stands, and all day long he plays one air, and that air is Kate Carney's song, "Down by the old Bull and Bush." The inn itself is almost in the shadow of a big mansion, Pitt House it is called, to which the great Lord Chatham retired when he suffered from his nerve storms, refused to see any of his fellow-ministers and could not even bear the presence of a servant, his food being passed in to him through a panel in the door. In the road to one side of the inn a peripatetic photographer generally establishes his studio. The Bull and Bush is a white-faced building with a slated roof, standing a little back from the highway, and behind it and on both sides of it are many trees. It is an old house with a big window to its large room on the first floor and nice old-fashioned bow-windows with small panes to the two bar-rooms on the ground floor. One of these bar-rooms is a real snuggery adorned with sketches by some of the artists who have made themselves at home in the inn. Various large boards set forth that lunches, dinners and teas are obtainable; that the name of the host is Mr Fred Vinall; that there are private dining-rooms, a coffee-room and billiards; and that a two-shilling ordinary is ready every Sunday from two to three o'clock. This "ordinary," which I believe is a very noble feast for the money charged, is held in the big room upstairs.
The gardens are at the back of the inn, and though summer is the real time to enjoy the attractions of the arbours at the Bull and Bush, it is quite pleasant when the new leaves are covering, in the spring, the trees with the lightest green, or on a still, autumn day when the tints around the lawn are all russet and copper, to drink tea on the little terrace behind the house in the centre of which is a great stone vase for flowers and at which little tables with red and white and yellow and white covers are set for the tea-drinkers. The tea is excellent, and though the slices of bread and butter are thick they are of fine bread and the freshest of butter. When spring merges into summer the green bowling lawn, with turf as thick and level as a carpet, also has its quota of cane chairs and little tables, and the rustic arbours all around it, on the roofs of which are boxes of flowers, are also all occupied. The waiters are kept busy carrying cakes and bread and butter and tea and stronger beverages all through a summer day to the little family parties who take their ease in the garden of their inn.
As a neighbour to the bowling-green is the platform which serves as an out-of-door dancing floor when Cinderellas are held on summer evenings, and as the flooring on which the chairs are put when a concert is given on a little stage which is to one side of this planked space. In the middle of this dancing and theatre floor is the circle of firs which bears Hogarth's name. There are electric lights on the terrace and amidst the trees and round the lawn and dancing floor. Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays are the days on which the concerts or the dances are generally held in summer.
Mr Fred Vinall, short in stature, genial in manner, with close-clipped grey beard and moustache, has just as distinguished friends amongst players and artists and men of the pen as any of his predecessors. He has revived the old pleasures of the tea-gardens of a hundred years ago, and to see the gardens of the Bull and Bush on a warm summer evening is to learn that Londoners can take their evening pleasures out of doors with cheerful mirth and with sobriety as well.
And now at last I come to the reason why the Bull and Bush should be recommended to gourmets not only as a place where Londoners can be seen amusing themselves sanely, but as a place of excellent eating. Mrs Vinall, wife of the host of the old inn, Belgian by birth, has all the talent of a Cordon Bleu, and if warning is telegraphed or written to the inn of the coming of a party of gourmets, a lunch or a dinner, admirably cooked under Mrs Vinall's supervision, will be ready for the gastronomers, the table set in the open air, and they will, I am sure, eating in the invigorating air of Hampstead Heath food admirably cooked, thank me for having told them of a lunching and dining place clear of the London smoke.
[XXXII]
THE BERKELEY
The pleasant, white-faced hotel, with its restaurant on the ground floor, which faces the Ritz across Piccadilly, stands on classic ground, for it was at the corner of Piccadilly and Berkeley Street that Francatelli, the great cook and maître d'hôtel, pupil of the even greater Carême, was in command of the St James's Restaurant and the hotel of that name which in the middle of the last century stood first, with no proxime accessit, amongst the restaurants of the capital.
Nowadays we take our great French cooks in London for granted; they are part of the life of London. But in the fifties Clubland was still a little astonished and flattered that the great chefs were willing to desert their own country to dwell amidst the fogs and rain of England, and restaurants were comparatively rare, and few of them were of a very high class. Hayward, who first published his "Art of Dining" in 1852, gives in his book little biographies of Ude and Francatelli, and alludes rather slightingly to Soyer, who was the third of the trio of very great cooks. Disraeli, who had enough of the artistic temperament in him to assign to gastronomy its proper place amongst the pleasures of life, recorded the dismissal of Ude from Crockford's in the following words:—"There has been a row at Crockford's, and Ude dismissed. He told the committee he was worth £4000 a year. Their new man is quite a failure, so I think the great artist may yet return from Elba." The "new man" was Francatelli, and he was so far from being a failure that when it was thought that Buckingham Palace should possess the greatest cook in England the position of chief cook and maître d'hôtel to the Queen was offered to him. He did not find the position a comfortable one, and resigned at the end of two years. For a time he lived in retirement, but in the sixties he once more placed himself on the active list, and took charge of the St James's.
In doing so he was following the example of Soyer, who, in the fifties, established a restaurant in Gore House, which had been the residence of Lady Blessington. Soyer expected that the Great Exhibition would send a crowd of rich people to his restaurant, and many great people patronised it, but in the end he lost £7000 by his venture. Hayward says concerning him that "he is more likely to earn immortality by his soup kitchen than by his soup," alluding to the soup kitchens that Soyer as a Government Commissioner established at the Royal Barracks in Dublin during the great famine in Ireland.
In 1868, when "The Epicure's Year Book," an attempt to copy Grimod de la Reynière's "Almanach des Gourmands," was published by Bradbury and Evans, Francatelli was at the zenith of his fame at the St James's, and the anonymous author, in that book, who wrote the chapter on "London Dinners," after paying a compliment to British fare, saying that Wilton and Rule are not afraid of comparison with any oyster dealers in the world, and extolling the flounders and steaks of the Blue Posts in Cork Street, declares that cookery "such as Ude once served at Crockford's and his successor Francatelli is now serving at the St James's Hotel, Piccadilly, is not reached by any other hotel or tavern in London." As it may interest my readers with a taste for antiquarian lore to know which were the restaurants recommended in the sixties for good plain food, I continue the quotation. "At the Ship and Turtle in Leadenhall Street, or at Birch's (Ring and Brymer), on Cornhill, the turtle is cooked with perfect art; and the punch would satisfy the author of 'Le veritable art de faire le Punch.' The fish, at the fish dinner at Simpson's in Cheapside, is admirable. Nay, you may have a chop broiled under your nose, at Joe's, behind the Royal Exchange, that shall defy criticism. At Simpson's in the Strand; at the Albion, by Drury Lane Theatre; at Blanchard's (ask for his Cotherstone cheese), in Beak Street, Regent Street, the Earl Dudley's neck of venison, duckling with green peas, or chicken with asparagus—the main elements of his dinner 'fit for an emperor,' are to be bought excellently well cooked. The Rainbow, in Fleet Street, is a well-known, good, plain house; and a grill well cooked and served, where Messrs Spiers and Pond have put up their silver gridiron, at Ludgate Hill, is a new illustration of London plain cookery. The London, in Fleet Street, is an admirable house; cheap, and yet where there are—a rare thing in the City—well-kept tables. This house publishes its menus in the evening papers. Our oyster shops have no rivals in the boastful capital of gastronomy. Take Pim's, for example, in the Poultry, where there are perfect oysters, and the luncheon delicacies of our modern day. But when the ambitious diner glances along the line of entrées, even in the best of the houses I have cited, he is in danger. In the City, the Albion is the best kitchen for elaborate dishes, and the dinners given here are smaller than the crowds which meet over huddled, flat, and chilled dishes at our great public dinners. Yet nobody would for one moment think of comparing the most carefully prepared dinner for sixty with such a menu as Francatelli prepares for half-a-dozen in Piccadilly." From this general damnation, however, the author exempts Willis's, in King Street, St James's, where, he says, the mutton pies of the Old Thatched House Tavern may still be eaten; Epitaux', in Pall Mall; the Burlington, in Regent Street; Verrey's and Kühn's, in which places "very respectable French cookery is to be had."
"The Epicure's Year Book" gives amongst its menus of remarkable dinners of 1867 one of the "Epicure" dinner served at the St James's. The dîner à la Russe was in those days ousting the dinner in the French style, in which the dishes were placed in three services or relays upon the table and carved by host and guests, and such an epicure as Captain Hans Busk, who was the gourmet par excellence of the sixties, gave his guests at the United University Club very much such a dinner as men eat to-day, though his dinners were of too many courses. But at the Mansion House the first and second and third services were still adhered to. Francatelli, though conforming to the new style, made concessions to the old school, as this menu shows. His French was a little shaky, for he did not know when "à la" should be used and when it should not be used:
Les Huîtres.
Potages.—La purée de gibier à la chasseur; à la Julienne.
Poisson.—Les epigrammes de rougets à la Bordelaise; le saumon à la Tartare.
Entrées.—Les mauviettes à la Troienza; les côtelettes à la Duchesse; les medaillons de perdreaux à la St James; le selle de mouton rôtie.
Legumes ... Salade.
Second Service.—Le faisan truffé à la Périgueux; la mayonnaise de crevettes; les chouxfleurs au parmesan; la charlotte de pommes; le gâteau à la Cérito.
The St James's was not by any means the first hostelry at the corner of Berkeley Street, for in the stage-coach days a coffee-house—the Gloucester, I think—occupied the site, and some of the coaches for the west used to start from it; but I have already given you a fill of the history of the forerunners of the Berkeley, and will come at once to recent years and the modern building.
M. Diette, who was one of the men who awakened London from its mid-Victorian gluttony and taught Londoners to dine lightly and dine well, was for a time at the Berkeley before he went to the Continent to make the Hotel du Palais at Biarritz a very splendid place of entertainment. He died recently at Le Touquet, where one of his many sons-in-law, M. Recoussine, is in command of two of the big hotels. In 1897 there were many alterations and additions made to the Berkeley, the restaurant was almost doubled in size, and when M. Jules was manager of the hotel and Emile was in charge of the restaurant, and M. Herpin was chef de cuisine, the Berkeley was, as it is now, one of the "best places" at which to dine in London. The restaurant in those days was panelled with light oak, and the ante-room, by the entrance, was all old gold. Jules was translated to the Savoy and now, as a proprietor, is comfortably settled at the Maison Jules in Jermyn Street. M. Kroell was another manager who stepped from the Berkeley to a larger hotel, having only to cross the road to reach the Ritz. Mr Raymond Slanz, the manager who controls the Berkeley in this year of grace, is as eminent as any of his predecessors. He is young, energetic, and has brains, which he has used unsparingly in keeping the Berkeley abreast of the times. He is the most cosmopolitan of managers, for he has gained his experience all over the Continent, in England, America and South Africa. He has been the architect of his own fortunes, for when he first came to London he started his upward career from the position of extra waiter at the Savoy. The restaurant to-day is all white; its walls have a deep white frieze, with on it in relief a wood through the trees of which a mediæval hunting party thread their way, half the animals that came out of the Ark being afoot in this wonderful preserve. There is some gold ornamentation just below the frieze and on the casings of the windows, and gilt electroliers are in the centre of the panels. Shields of semi-opaque glass and lamps hidden by the cornice throw light up on to the ceiling and there are gilt capitols to the fluted columns. The rose and grey of the carpet and the rose of the chair cushions form a pleasant contrast to the white. The ante-room in which a string band of musicians in gorgeous uniforms play has the same decoration as the restaurant. The Berkeley restaurant flourishes so satisfactorily that more tables are wanted, though it is comparatively lately that a new room was added, and the space occupied by the cashiers is to be thrown into the restaurant. M. Arturo Giordano, who is generally known as "Arthur" and who used to oscillate between the Palais at St Moritz and the Berkeley, is now permanently in charge of the restaurant, and M. J. Granjon, who came to London from the Grande Cercle Républicain, and who has been created a Chevalier of the Order of Mérite Agricole, is the chef de cuisine.
One warm July evening I found myself at eight o'clock dinnerless in Mayfair. I was to have dined with friends at their house, but on arriving there found that my hostess had been taken suddenly ill and that dinner was the last thing concerning which the household was troubling itself. My room under these circumstances was more welcome than my company. My favourite table in my favourite club would, I knew, be occupied by somebody else; the Berkeley was the nearest restaurant, and I accordingly walked there and found one of the small tables at the far end of the room unoccupied. At the Berkeley there is always a carte du jour with an abundant choice of dishes, those ready being marked with a cross. It is the custom of the house, and a very good one too, to allow the diners to choose their own dinner from the carte and to charge them half-a-guinea or twelve and six, according to whether the dinner is a long one or a short one. I was in the course of ordering a short dinner and had selected rossolnik, a Russian soup, some turbot, a wing of a chicken en cocotte, and was hesitating over the various entremets, when Arthur espied me, came to my table and took matters into his own hands. He asked to be allowed to alter my menu slightly in order that some of the specialities of the house might play a part in it. I was nothing loth, for my dinner under those circumstances became interesting, and I was prepared to consider critically any of M. Granjon's creations that Arthur might put before me. This was the menu:
Melon Cantaloup.
Crème Raymonde.
Turbotin Beaumarchais.
Suprême de Volaille Bagatelle.
Velouté Châtelaine.
Pêches Glacés Hortense.
The soup was a cream of chicken, delightfully soft, a very gentle introduction to what was to follow. The turbotin Beaumarchais is a noble dish, a strong white wine sauce with the essence of the fish in it, and sliced truffles, and mushrooms and carrots being served therewith, parsley, and just a suspicion of onion. The suprême de volaille Bagatelle I recommend to anyone who, like myself, is occasionally warned off red meats by sundry twinges, as being a dish of fowl which is interesting and not in the least vapid. Asparagus and mushrooms and truffles go with it, and the principal ingredients of the sauce are port and cream reduced. The entremet consisted of peaches and grapes, raspberries, and a cream ice with, I fancy, more than one liqueur added, the whole forming a noble Coupe-Jacques, served in a silver bowl. My dinner being a short one, I had plenty of appetite left for this admirable fruit dish.
The Berkeley, both the hotel and the restaurant, always seem to be a stronghold of the country gentleman. If I heard that an M.F.H. of my acquaintance whom I wished to see was in town and I did not know his address, the hotel to which I should telephone first to ask whether he was staying there would be the Berkeley, and no doubt the wonderful frieze of the restaurant is a compliment to the mighty hunters who stay in the hotel. Many squarsons and the higher ranks of the clergy are amongst the patrons of the Berkeley, and whenever I dine at the restaurant it seems to me that it ought to be the week of the Oxford and Cambridge or Eton and Harrow cricket matches, for I always see amongst the guests at the dinner-parties pretty girls with complexions of cream and rose, the sisters of Varsity lads and public schoolboys, country maidens whom I always associate with "Lord's," light and dark blue ribbons, and wild enthusiasm.
I have never dined at the Berkeley without coming away a pleased man, and the dinner that M. Granjon cooked for me when I was dinnerless in the wilderness which borders the Green Park sent me away from the Berkeley rejoicing.