“True,” explained Brummell; “I know it never made its appearance. It was a splendid pie—a chef-d’œuvre, and I felt deeply interested in its fate. When going away I inquired what had been done with the pie. The cook said, ‘Master had kept it for Master Harry’s birthday.’ To be the ‘cut and come again’ of a nursery dinner. To be the prey of the little Joneses and their nurses was atrocious. It was an insult to me and my pie! ‘Go,’ I said, ‘to your kitchen; I particularly want to see the pâté de foie gras.’ Feeling that it would have been a sin to leave it with such people, I took it away. It was not honest, but as I cut into it this morning I almost felt justified, for I never inserted a knife into such another.”
It certainly was anything but honest, and it would have been well had Brummell remembered the childish saying about “give a thing and take a thing,” but where a person’s amour-propre is touched on such an important matter as a game pie it would not be right of course to judge the action by the ordinary standard. The idea of taking the pie back for the reasons alleged was really funny, though the fact of the beau being extremely “hard up” very possibly had a good deal to do with his conduct. Apropos of this condition it may be news to some to know that there once existed an institution called the “Hard Up Club” the formation of which is alluded to by “Baron” Nicholson in his autobiography. He says “just before I left the Queen’s Bench I had a visit from Pellatt (a well-known man about town in that day, who had formerly been clerk and solicitor to the Ironmongers’ Company), with the news that he and another jolly old friend of mine had made a discovery of a place of rest suitable to our condition in life, which I must say was seedy in every respect. Pellatt had been in the habit of coming over to the Bench almost daily to dine with me and others, who were delighted with his amusing qualities. He gave excellent imitations of the past and present London actors, and his genius for entertaining was brought into active operation in our prison circle. The history of the discovery of ‘The Nest,’ or tranquil house of entertainment, was this: Pellatt and a friend of his, ‘Old Beans’ (whose right name was Bennett, yclept ‘Old Beans’ for shortness), were strolling about the Strand one foggy November night, their habiliments were uncomfortably ventilated, their crab-shells of the order hydraulic; snow was on the ground, and their castors ‘shocking bad hats.’ Not liking to enter any very public places they strayed round the back streets on the river side of the Strand, and turning from Norfolk Street into Howard Street, vis-à-vis they perceived a tavern, a dull, unlighted (save by a dim lamp), small, old-fashioned public-house in Arundel Street, with the sign of ‘The Swan.’ ‘“The Swan,”’ said Pellatt, as he read the sign, ‘will never sink! Beans, old fellow, we’ll go into the ‘Never Sink!’
“The house was better known for years afterwards by this name than by its real sign. The two wayfarers entered. Old Charles Mathews in his ‘At Home’ used to tell a story of pulling up at a road-side inn, and interrogating the waiter as to what he could have for dinner.
“‘Any hot joint?’ said the traveller.
“‘No, sir; no hot joint, sir.’
“‘Any cold one?’
“‘Cold one, sir? No, sir; no cold one, sir.’
“‘Can you broil me a fowl?’
“‘Fowl, sir? No, sir; no fowl, sir.’
“‘No fowl, and in a country inn!’ exclaimed Mathews. ‘Let me have some eggs and bacon then.’