When the creamy-pink salmon was put upon the table, M. Guffanti, going the rounds of the tables, came and asked if everything was to our satisfaction, and as I thought it might interest the leading lady, I asked him what had become of Madame Dieudonné's little room and the pretty things that were drawn and written on its walls.
Before Dieudonné's became the handsome hotel and restaurant that it is now, it was a boarding-house which stood in high favour with such of the French artists and sculptors and singers and actors who crossed the silver streak to perfidious Albion. The table-d'hôte dinner, at which Mdme. Dieudonné took the head of the long table, was a celebrated institution. No one could come without being vouched for by some of the habitués, and most of the people who might be found at the board were of European celebrity. Madame had a little parlour, which was a kind of holy of holies, and on the walls of this all the most celebrated of the celebrities who were the amis du maison either drew a sketch or wrote a quatrain, or dotted down a bar or two of some favourite air, and the names that were signed below the sketches and the scribblings were some of those that stand highest on the roll of fame. M. Guffanti told us that in spite of all precautions the walls were spoilt, and that Madame's little parlour was now the ante-room downstairs with the Watteau panels, where people sit after dinner and drink coffee.
The duck was excellent, but to be absolutely critical I thought that the vegetables had lingered a thought too long by the fire, and if the weather had not been as muggy and stifling as it was I might have suggested that the lamb from which the noisettes were cut would have been better for a little longer hanging. For the rest of the dinner I had nothing but praise, and the salad of strawberries, as cold as ice could make it, was delicious. I ordered coffee and some chartreuse in crushed ice for the leading lady, and some fin champagne for myself and asked for my bill.
While disposing of the coffee I thought that my chance had come to get the leading lady's real opinion of my conception of the character of Joseph's valet, and began explaining at length my method of entry to announce the arrival of Charles Surface; but the leading lady rather brusquely asked for her cloak, and said we should miss part of the first act of "Frou-Frou."
I paid the bill—Two dinners, 15s.; one bottle 89, 13s.; two cafés specials, 1s. 6d.; two liqueurs, 2s.; total, £1: 11: 6—and helped the leading lady on with her cloak. I think she might have listened to my ideas as to the valet's entrance. These amateurs—all but myself—are so inordinately selfish.
5th July.