[CHAPTER XII]
THE ST. GEORGE'S CAFÉ (ST. MARTIN'S LANE)
Whenever I have come across a Philistine who has eaten a vegetarian dinner, he always professes that he narrowly escaped with his life. Now this I knew must be an invention, and I was anxious to try for myself whether a dinner of herbs meant contentment or whether it did not, so I approached one of the high priests of the order, and asked which would be the restaurant in London at which it would be wisest to try the experiment. The answer I received was not of the most encouraging. The high priest had no very great faith in the cooking at any of the restaurants, and very kindly suggested that, if I wanted to try vegetarian diet, I should come and pay him a visit. If, however, I preferred the restaurants, the two he would suggest were the Ideal Café, 185 Tottenham Court Road, or the St. George's Café, St. Martin's Lane.
Before trying either I thought I would reconnoitre both. I passed the Tottenham Court Road café early in the morning, when neither people nor cafés look at their best. On the brown brick front was a gilt device telling that it was a social club for gentlemen and ladies, and I gathered from legends on the windows that there was a ladies' chess club, and that the café was a restaurant as well; indeed, was all things to all eating men and women; for on the bill of fare exposed in the window there were the prices of fish and fowl, as well as such entirely vegetarian dishes as haricot and potato pie and mushroom omelette. There was something of the appearance of a pastrycook's about the windows on the ground floor, and a damsel was "dressing" one of them with yellow cloth, to act no doubt as a background to the delicacies presently to be exposed. I caught sight through the window of a counter with tea appurtenances on it.
It was in the afternoon that I made my second reconnaissance, this time in the direction of St. Martin's Lane, and I found the St. George's Restaurant to be a red brick building of an Elizabethan type, with leaded glass windows and with a sign, whereon was inscribed "The famous house for coffee," swinging from a wrought-iron support. The windows on the ground floor had palms in them, and the gaze of the vulgar was kept from the inner arcana by neat little curtains. From the bill of fare I gathered that I could obtain such luxuries as grilled mushrooms and seakale cream, which cost 10d., or mushroom omelette and young carrots sauté, which were 1s., or Yorkshire pudding with sage and onions and new potatoes for 7d. Before I moved on I ascertained that here also was a ladies' chess club, and that on the first floor was a ladies' room. I made up my mind that the St. George's should be my dining place, and the next question was how to secure some one to dine with me.
I had to be present that afternoon at a committee for a benefit theatrical performance, and found half a dozen of my fellow committee-men assembled. During a pause in the business one of them remarked that the Savoy dinner about which I had written seemed to have been an excellent feast. This gave me my opportunity, and mentioning that I was going to do another dinner for publication that evening, asked if any one would care to dine with me. A pleased look came to at least four faces, but all were too polite to speak first. Then I said what the dinner was to be. One man had to go to a Masonic banquet; another was dining at a farewell feast to a coming Benedick; another had promised his dear old aunt to spend that evening with her: the guests bidden to the scriptural feast were not more prompt in excuses.
I went on to my Service club and found there a subaltern who, in old days, had been in my company, and who would have followed me, or preceded me, into any danger of battle without the tremble of an eyelid. Him I urged to come with me, telling him that a man can only die once, and other such inspiriting phrases, and had nearly persuaded him when old General Bundobust joined in the conversation and told a story of how Joe Buggins, of the Madras Fusiliers, once ate a vegetarian dinner and swelled up afterwards till he was as big as a balloon. That finished the subaltern, and he refused to go.