THE CONFESSIONS OF A DINER.
My First City Dinner—A Minnow against the Stream—Those Table Plans—Chaos—The City Alderman, Past and Present—Whistler's Lollipops—Odd Volumes—Exchanging Names—Ye Red Lyon Clubbe—The Pointed Beards—Baltimore Oysters—The Sound Money Dinner—To Meet General Boulanger—A Lunch at Washington—No Speeches.
The Thirteen Club—What it was—How it was Boomed—Gruesome Details—Squint-Eyed Waiters—Superstitious Absentees—My Reasons for being Present—'Arry of Punch—The Lost "Vocal" Chords—The Undergraduate and the Undertaker—Model Speeches—Albert Smith An Atlantic Contradiction—The White Horse—The White Feather—Exit 13.
ROBABLY no meal varies so much in the time of its celebration as that most important one, dinner. Some people still exist who dine at one o'clock; some also there are who daily observe that fearsome feast yclept "High Tea." The majority of people dine at various times ranging between seven o'clock and half-past eight, but there is one individual alone who dines at six. It is the City Guilder. Time was when City princes dwelt in City palaces, and rose at five, breakfasted at seven, lunched at twelve, dined at five and retired to rest at ten; but nowadays these magnates are lords of the City from ten till four, and of the West End and the suburbs for the remainder of the twenty-four hours, and they would in the ordinary course of things invite you to dinner at eight o'clock or so. What inscrutable law, then, compels them to hold their state dinners at the dread hour of six?
For it is at this time, when the ebb-tide of humanity sets strongest from the City, that the honoured guest of a City Company may be seen fighting his way, like a minnow against stream, in a hansom to his dinner at the hall of the Guild. Still, he goes "where glory waits him," so what recks he that the hour is altogether uncongenial and inconvenient?
Nevertheless, I know as a matter of fact that this earliness compels many invited guests to decline the honour and pleasure of dining with a "Gill" (as "Robert" would say), who would without doubt accept the invitation were the hours of the Guild as reasonable as their cuisine is excellent.
Personally, however, it has often been a pleasure to me to leave my easel at four o'clock and prepare to meet my practical City patrons "on their own midden" at "5.30 for 6."
As an illustration I will record a reminiscence of a very pleasant evening I once spent in the City, when the festivities—save for my having to make a speech—went off with that success which is inseparable from City dinners.
Imprimis, I arrive in daylight and evening dress. These two, like someone and holy water, don't agree, for not all the waters of Geneva nor the arts of the queen of all blanchisseuses can destroy the horrid contrast between a white tie and a white shirt; yet another good argument in favour of a reasonable dinner hour.