I was soon put right, my hat and coat taken from me, and my card of invitation placed in the hands of a Master of the Ceremonies, who in due time presented me to the Master, to the Senior Warden, and to the House Warden, who stood in a line, arrayed in garments of purple velvet and fur, and received their guests.
The ceremony of introduction over, I was able to look around me and found myself in a drawing-room that took one away from the roar of Cheapside to some old Venetian palace. The painted ceilings, the many-coloured marbles, the carved wood, the gilding and inlaying make the Mercers' drawing-room as princely a chamber as I have ever seen.
While the guests assembled my host's sons took me away into another room, which, with its long table, might have been a council chamber of some Doge, and here were hung portraits of the most distinguished of the Mercers. Dick Whittington looked down from a gilt frame, and Sir Thomas Gresham, and there was Sir Roundell Palmer in his judge's robes. But, preceded by some one in robes carrying a staff of office, the Master was going into the hall, and the guests streamed after him. "It only dates from after the Fire," said my host as I gazed in admiration at the magnificent proportions of this banqueting house, the oak almost black with age, relieved by the colours of the banners that hang from the walls, by the portraits of worthies, by some noble painted windows, by the line of escutcheons which run round the room, bearing the arms of the Past-Masters of the Company, and by the carved panels, into all but two of which Grinling Gibbons threw his genius, while the two new ones compare not unfavourably with the old. At the far end of the hall is a musicians' gallery of carved oak. A bronze Laocoon wrestles with his snakes in the centre of one side of the hall, and on the other, on a mantel of red marble, a great clock is flanked by two bronzes. Three long tables run up the room to the high table, at the centre of which is the Master's chair, and behind this chair is piled on the sideboard the Company's plate. And some of the plate is magnificent. There are the old silver salt-cellars, there are great silver tankards, gold salvers, and the gold cup given to the Mercers by the Bank of England and the Lee cup and an ornamental tun and waggon, the first of which is valued at £7000, and the second at £10,000.
"Pray, silence for grace," comes in the deep bass tones of the toastmaster from behind the Master's chair, and then all of us settle down to a contemplation of the menu and to a view of our fellow-guests.
This was the dinner that Messrs. Ring and Brymer, who cater for the Mercers, put upon the table:—
I always rather dread the length of a City dinner, but in the case of the Mercers the House Warden has just hit on a happy compromise, the dinner being important enough to be styled a banquet, and not so long as to be wearying. Messrs. Ring and Brymer's cook is to be congratulated, too, for his Mousse de foie gras was admirable.
There were some distinguished guests at the high table. At the far end, where Sir Cecil Clementi Smith, the Senior Warden, sat, there were little splashes of colour from the ribbons of orders worn round the neck, and the sparkle of stars under the lapels of dress-coats.
The Master had on his right a well-known baronet, and on his left Silomo. Next to the friend of the Turk was an ex-M.P., and next to him again one of the humorists of the present House of Commons—an Irish Q.C., with clean-shaven, powerful face.
At the long tables sat as proper a set of gentlemen as ever gathered to a feast; but with no special characteristics to distinguish them from any other great assemblage. The snow-white hair of a clergyman told out vividly against the background of old oak, and a miniature volunteer officer's decoration caught my eye as I looked down the table.