For one-and-nine one is given a choice of either hors d'œuvre or soup, fish, an entrée and an entremet, and there is quite a reasonable choice of dishes under each heading. I dined at M. Béguinot's restaurant one Sunday night, and Sunday is by no means a bad day on which to dine there, for the rooms are then less crowded than on weekdays, and, sitting at one of the long tables, I selected from the carte of the dinner cold consommé, fried sole, sweetbread and spinach, and an ice. The consommé was reasonably strong, the sole was really a little slip, but quite fresh and well fried; the small sweetbread was excellent, and the diminutive portion of ice was all that it should be. There was a liberal supply of bread on the table, and the crisp sound of the cutting of the long yards of bread at a side table was almost continuous throughout dinner. When I had finished my meal I certainly did not feel full to repletion, but it sufficed. My neighbour on one side of me had ordered a hors d'œuvre, and the globule of butter given him with his two sardines was a tiny one. He followed fish with fish, and I noticed that the slice of cold salmon of a pale pink came from the tail end. He followed my suit in ordering sweetbread, and finished his meal with a tartlet. I was extravagant in my order for wine, for, passing over the elevenpenny Graves and the next wine on the list, I recklessly commanded a pint of Sauterne, which cost me 1s. 10d., so that my bill came to 3s. 7d., and I got very good value for my money.
My fellow-guests on Sunday night were a selection from all the respectable classes, little parties of ladies, married couples and that contingent from the artistic colony which is always to be found in every Soho restaurant.
[XXII]
THE WELCOME CLUB
In the days when I was still an enthusiastic amateur actor, I was once "cast" for the insignificant part of an aged peasant—the organiser of the performance assured me that though there were only a dozen lines in the part, it nevertheless "stood out"—and in a smock-frock, a pair of second-best trousers tied up with hay-bands, fishing boots, a bandana handkerchief round my neck, a long, straggly white beard, a red nose and an old tall silk hat, brushed the wrong way to give it the appearance of beaver, I depicted the rude forefather of the village. I spoke in a trembling, squeaky voice and I was addressed by the lads and lasses, yes, and even by the noble old squire and by the black-browed villain, as "Granfer." The part did not, apparently, stand out enough to catch the notice of our audiences, but to those who played with me that drama of village life I have remained "Granfer" to the present day, and every summer I ask three of them, my Pet Grandchild, my Tiny Grandchild and Little Perce to dine with me one evening at the Welcome Club and to go the round of the side-shows afterwards, that being very much the sort of entertainment that every real grandfather ought, I think, to give his grandchildren.
I made my acquaintance with the Welcome Club in the year that it was first built, at the beginning of all things at Earl's Court. Mr Alec Knowles was the first secretary of the club. The idea of the Welcome Club, of which distinguished foreigners could be made honorary members, originated at the great Chicago Exhibition, in the grounds of which there was a club of this name.
The trees that were planted in front of the lawn of the club have grown to a good size now, but even more picturesque than the formal lines of planes are the thorns and other old trees which were on the ground before the makers of the exhibition gardens took things in hand, and which were left there. Year after year, additions and improvements have been made to the Welcome Club. What was originally a dining-room and a lawn has become a club-house in a garden. The long shelter, a pleasant place in which to dine on a summer's evening, has been enlarged more than once, and now, with its alcoves, each a tiny dining-room, with vines growing up its supports and flower beds edging its railings, it pleases the eye of the artist and architect as well as the eye of the diner. On the other side of the club-house is a pretty drawing-room for ladies, and Time, which always works in sympathy with a clever architect, has done its share in deepening the colour of the tiles, in bringing the lawn to velvety perfection, and in drawing up the young trees inch by inch. Never before have the garden beds been so gay with flowers as they were in 1913, and the interior of the club-house has been brightened up to concert pitch.
To organise the staff of a club that is only open for four months in the year is no easy matter, for the pick of maîtres d'hôtel and cooks and waiters do not as a rule care to accept engagements that only last for a third of a year. A club as far from its bases of supply as is the Welcome cannot arrange its catering so easily as can clubs in the centre of London, which have their fishmonger's and butcher's shops just round the corner, and a wet or a cold night means almost empty dining-rooms at Earl's Court. Difficulties, however, only exist to be overcome, and Mr Payne, the chairman of the Earl's Court Company, determined that it shall no longer be said that it is impossible to get a good dinner in any exhibition, has brought all his energy to bear on the problem, and with Mr Charles Bartlett, as secretary, with a Bond Street firm of caterers responsible for the personnel and material and with M. G. Thuillez in charge of the club kitchens, I think that Mr Payne made good his promise. I certainly have never before at the Welcome Club eaten a dinner so satisfactory in every way as the one I gave one fine evening last July to my three grandchildren.