George looked at me with the corners of his mouth drawn up by a suppressed smile, and his left eyebrow twitched as if he felt inclined to wink. I poured oil on the troubled waters. If Mrs. Tota, with her husband's permission, would dine with me at Pagani's on Sunday we would dine in the public dining-room on the first floor, and look afterwards at the drawings and signatures in the celebrated little room on the second floor.
"It is real good of you to take the wife out," said George, as he saw me off the premises. "I hate going out at night, as you know, but she enjoys it all thoroughly. She chattered about that last dinner for a good month."
On the Saturday I went to Pagani's, secured a table for the next evening in the room on the first floor, a very pretty dining-room with soft blue curtains to the windows, a blue paper on the walls, shaded electric lights, and a little bow-window at the back, which makes the snuggest of nooks. Then M. Giuseppe Pagani, one of the two proprietors, having appeared, we talked over the important matter of the menu. The difficulty that vexed our minds was whether filets de sole Pagani or turbot à la Pellegrini would best suit a lady's appetite. Finally the sole won the day. I hesitated a moment over the Bortsch soup, for it has become almost as much a standing dish as croûte au pot in most restaurants; but Bortsch is the customary Sunday soup at Pagani's, so it had to be included in the menu.
This was our list completed:—
Hors-d'œuvre variés.
Potage Bortsch.
Filets de sole Pagani.
Tournedos aux truffes.
Haricots verts sautés. Pommes croquettes.
Perdreau Voisin. Salade.
Soufflé au curaçoa.
At eight o'clock on Sunday I was waiting for Mrs. Tota in the arched entrance which is one of the distinctive features of the modern Pagani's. Glazed grey tiles front the whole of the ground floor, the rest of the building being red brick, and the deep entrance arches are supported by squat little blue pillars. The curve of the arches are set with rows of electric light, which give the little restaurant the appearance of having been illuminated for a fête every night.
"Now mind, I want to see everything, and be told who everybody is," said Mrs. Tota as she got out of the cab, and I promised to do my best to carry out her wishes, and suggested that we should peep into the room on the ground floor before we went upstairs.
The long room, with its golden paper, its mirrors painted with flowers and trellis-work, its little counter piled with fruit, was crowded with diners, not one of the many little tables being vacant. A great hum of talk fell on our ears, and many of the gentlemen at the tables were gesticulating as only foreigners can. I told Mrs. Tota that at least half the guests were musicians or singers, and immediately she was all attention. One gentleman, with long hair and a close-clipped beard, she recognised as a well-known violinist; and a gentleman with a black moustache and a great bush of rebellious hair, she identified as a celebrated baritone, though he looked strange, she thought, without a frock-coat, lavender kid gloves, and a roll of music in his hands.