I chose the table-d'hôte dinner—
Hors-d'œuvre variés.
Croûte au pot. Crème Dubarry.
Filets de sole Portugaise. Whitebait.
Côtelettes d'agneau aux pointes d'asperges.
Canard sauvage. Salade.
Céleri à la moëlle.
Biscuit glacé au chocolat.
Canapé de laitances à la Diable.
Dessert.
—and ordered a bottle of G. H. Mumm, 1889. Miss Belle, having settled down into conversational mood, told me that she had rooms in a house in Bloomsbury in which some of the other ladies of the company lived. "We girls go about together. We go everywhere, and nobody ever says anything to us. Yes, sir. That is one thing I will say about Englishmen, as a rule they are not fresh." She was quite surprised that English girls did not do the same. In the security of this sisterhood there was nowhere she and the other girls could not go. The night before, five of them had taken a private room at the Trocadéro, and had supped by themselves with great content, rejoicing in the absence of man. The London policemen were the institutions that "in your dirty old town" met with thorough approval from Miss Belle. She warranted them polite and ready to answer questions. "If you ask anything of a New York policeman you get a hard look back and that's all."
The croûte au pot was strong, but too salt. I am, perhaps, prejudiced against the eternal croûte au pot and petite marmite. Miss Belle, who took the thick soup, approved of it highly. The filets de sole Portugaise were admirable.
We had a table at the far end of the room from the kitchen, which accounted for the whitebait, excellently cooked as it was, not being as hot as whitebait should be.
I felt that I had cross-examined Miss Belle as much as politeness allowed, so I told her something of the history of Epitaux's; how the site was originally that of Foote's Theatre in the Haymarket—Foote the witty buffoon, who was a big enough man in his day to pose as a rival to Garrick—and how at a later period it became the Café de l'Europe. Here, in the ante-early-closing days, after the midnight farce at the Haymarket Theatre next door, the stern critics of the pit would come to eat their chop, or Welsh-rabbit, or tripe and onions, and talk learnedly of plays and players till two in the morning. And I told Miss Belle of the old Epitaux's in the Opera colonnade, the name of which has been transferred to the new establishment in the Haymarket; how in the early Victorian days it was one of the very few restaurants where good French cookery could be found, and how the Iron Duke, and other famous men used to give little dinner-parties there.
Then Miss Belle took up the running, and told me of the restaurants of modern New York, of the up-town Delmonico's, which has been built since I crossed the herring-pond, and of Sherry's, Martin's, Burns's, and Shandley's, the three latter Bohemian, but not the less comfortable for that.
The cutlets were excellent, and the asparagus the best I have tasted this winter, while the duck was cooked to an absolute nicety. The biscuit glacé au chocolat was as delightful and evanescent as a good dream. Altogether it was a very good dinner, though the cook did have a little accident with the salt-cellar in preparing the croûte au pot.
Miss Belle told me of her tour in the same company with Miss Dainty, of adventures at "one-night stands," of cowboys who brought their bronchos for the ladies of the company to ride, and other tales that amused me much while we drank our coffee and liqueurs. "Guess I've talked a streak," she said, when in a pause I asked for my bill.
Two dinners, 15s.; two cafés, 1s.; champagne, 14s.; liqueurs, 2s.; total £1: 12s., was what I paid.