"C'est le patron," said one of the waiters, and I promptly introduced myself to him, and began to cross-examine him as to the identity of his clients, for the room was filling very quickly. M. Brice sat on a chair by my table, which now had its full complement of diners, for the burly, bearded Frenchman, the other with the hair combed down on to his forehead, and a third with a carefully curled moustache, had taken the three vacant places.
"That," said M. Brice, indicating a dark gentleman with a curled moustache, "is Chaudoir, the chef d'orchestre at Sergeant Sole."
"What?" I said, bluntly enough.
"At Sergeant Sole, where they are blacked."
A sudden inspiration that Sergeant Sole was St. James's Hall came to me.
"And that," pointing to a gentleman with a red tie, "is the gentleman who does the socialistic writing for the Pall Mall."
Three clean-shaven gentlemen were vaguely described as "artists," and after gazing at a lady in black with white hair for some time, M. Brice said, "That is an old woman." The two gentlemen sitting opposite this lady were the Messieurs Chose, of a firm in Old Broad Street, and the three Frenchmen at my table were big men in the greengrocery line, who come over two or three times a year to Covent Garden.
A clean-shaven, prosperous-looking gentleman, with a young lady in black, entered just then, and a note of admiration came into M. Brice's voice as he told me that this was the coachman of the Baron Alfred de Rothschild.
The turbot and caper sauce, which was the most expensive part of my dinner, costing as much as 8d., I did not care for very much; but, on the other hand, the gigot haricot, which followed it, was excellent. M. Brice, who kept up a running accompaniment of conversation to my dinner, told me that all the meat cooked at his restaurant was English.
There is no such thing as a wine list at the Restaurant des Gourmets, and I had ordered at a venture a pint of vin ordinaire, which the waiter told me would cost sixpence. It is a rough, strong wine, and I suggested to M. Brice that it probably was of Corsican or Sardinian growth. M. Brice shrugged his shoulders and from somewhere produced a pint of claret, with the name of the late M. Nicol of the Café Royal, on it, and told me that he was able to sell that at a very moderate price.