We walked along the path up the river in the cool of the evening till we could see the lights in Garrick's Villa, and then my crony and I bade each other good-night and went our separate ways.
[XXV]
IN THE HANDS OF PI(E)RATES
THE CONNAUGHT ROOMS
When it was decided by the contributors to Printer's Pie to entertain their editor, "The Pieman," a little committee of artists and writers, with the editor of The Tatler as secretary, considered various plans for giving Mr Hugh Spottiswoode a dinner with unusual surroundings.
A decision was arrived at that the contributors to the Pie should become Pi(e)rates, for one night only, and in that guise should entertain the Pieman in a pirate haunt, and then the next question was the choice of a dining place and the difficult matter of finding the proprietor or manager of a restaurant who would enter thoroughly into the spirit of the burlesque and would provide a real pirate feast with blood-curdling piratical surroundings. A member of the committee suggested Mr George Harvey, who controls the Connaught Rooms in Great Queen Street, as the very man, and to the next meeting of the committee Mr George Harvey came, quiet, humorous and resourceful, and when he heard the outlines of our scheme he smiled, and said that he thought he quite understood what we wanted.