"Your dinner—everything go right, eh, Mister Esquire?" and "the Roman," a dapper little Italian in faultless dress-clothes, with a small, carefully tended moustache, a full head of black hair, turning grey at the temple, and talking English with a free admixture of Italian, stood by our table, going his round to see that all the diners were satisfied. Miss Dainty did not ask for the deep-red carnation that was in "the Roman's" button-hole; but before he had passed on she was pinning it into her dress, and when I ventured a very mild remark I was told that if I had not been mean enough to let her pass the flower-stall without offering her a button-hole she would not have had to accept one from anybody else—a retort which was scarcely fair.
I asked Miss Dainty if she knew who the pretty lady dining with a good-looking grey-haired man at a table at the end of the room was. She did know and gave me a full account of the lady's stage career, and while the perdreau en casserole was being cut up we ran over the professions of the various diners who occupied the triple line of little tables running down the room. The two men dining by themselves were powers in the theatrical world. "May I ask them to come and take their coffee and old brandy at our table?" I asked, and Miss Dainty graciously assented. There were as well a well-known theatrical lawyer talking business with the secretary to a successful manager; a dramatic author, who was proposing plays to a colonial manager; a lady with golden hair and a permanent colour to whom a small Judaic youth was whispering with great earnestness; a well-known sporting lord, dining by himself; a music-hall agent laying down the law as to contracts to a journalist; two quiet ladies in sealskin coats; and many others, nearly all connected with the great army of stage-land.
A little too much onion with the perdreau en casserole we both thought, otherwise admirable. Salad good, artichokes good, though we preferred plain vinegar as a dressing to the hollandais one, and the ice delicious. Then Miss Dainty trifled with cherries cased in pink sweetness and sections of oranges sealed in transparent sugar, and our two friends from the table at the far end came across and took coffee and liqueurs with us, and talked of the old days when Romano's was but a quarter of the size it is now, when it was far more Bohemian than it is now, when there was a little aquarium in the front window into which the sons of Belial used to try and force each other late at night, much to the consternation of the gold-fish, when everybody who took his meals there knew everybody else and the chaff ran riot down the single line of little tables, and when every Sunday morning a devoted but Sabbath-breaking band were led across the Strand by "the Roman" to see his cellars, "best in London," as he used to say.
All of a sudden Miss Dainty, whom these reminiscences did not interest very much, remembered that the door of the parrot's cage had been left open. She was quite sure that the poodle would be trying to kill the bird, and she must go back at once to see to the matter.
I put Miss Dainty, who said that she had enjoyed her dinner, into a hansom, two brown eyes full of laughter set in a pretty face looked out at me as she told me to be good and that then I should be happy, the cabman cried "Pull up" to his horse, and the pretty lady was off to the rescue of the parrot.
Then I went back and paid my bill: Two couverts, 6d.; hors-d'œuvre, 2s.; crème Pink 'Un, 2s.; truite, 2s. 6d.; côtelettes de mouton, 2s. 6d.; petits pois, 1s.; pommes, 1s.; perdreau, 6s.; salade, 1s.; artichauts, 2s.; glace, 2s.; champagne (107), 13s. 6d.; café, 3s.; liqueurs, 5s.; total £2: 4s.
22nd February.
When I asked Antonelli for a specimen menu of a dinner of ceremony such as is often given in the pretty Japanese room on the second floor he looked pleased and said that I should certainly have it; but when I asked for the recette of the crème Pink 'Un he looked as doleful as if he had just heard of the death of his grandmother. But Signor Romano came to the rescue. "The chef he say that soup what-you-call-a secret du maison; but I tell him no matter secret or not he just write it out for you." So I got my recette. This is the dinner, and a noble feast it is, that Antonelli recommends for a party of twelve. The Homard sauté à la Julien is a speciality of Romano's; but I have some respect for the feelings of Antonelli and the chef, and did not ask for a recette of that.
Huîtres natives.
Petite bouchée norvégienne.
Tortue claire.
Crème Dubarry.
Homard sauté à la Julien.
Aiguillette de sole. Sauce Germanique.
Zéphir de poussin à la Brillat-Savarin.
Selle d'agneau à la Grand-Veneur.
Petits pois primeur à la Française.
Pomme nouvelle persillade.
Spongada à la Palermitaine.
Jambon d'York braisé au champagne.
Caille à la Crapaudine.
Salade de saison.
Asperges vertes en branche. Sauce mousseuse.
Timbale Marie-Louise.
Bombe à la Romano.
Petits fours assortis.
Dessert.
Café.