Then I asked questions about the gilt centre-piece, which is in the shape of an Egyptian vase with sphinxes on the base, and was told that the holding capacities of it were beyond the guessing of anyone who had not seen the experiment tried. Some of the other plate which is put upon the table at the close of dinner is of great interest. There is a cigar-lighter in the shape of a grenade given by his late Majesty King Edward, a silver cigar-cutter, a memento of an inter-regimental friendship made at manœuvres, and a snuff-box made from one of the hoofs of Napoleon's charger Marengo. Which hoof it was is not stated on the box, but the collective wisdom of the table decided that it must have been the near hind one. Excepting on days when the Scots Guards are on guard, the Sovereign's health is not, I believe, drunk after dinner—though I fancy that King Edward, when Prince of Wales, dining on guard, broke through this custom. The regiment from across the Border was at one time suspected of a leaning towards Jacobitism, and while the officers were ordered to drink his Majesty's health they were not allowed to use finger-glasses after dinner, lest they should drink to the King over the water.
Dinner over, the big sofa is pulled round in front of the fire and a bridge-table claims its devotees. I asked my host to be allowed to inspect the pictures which pretty well cover the walls. The most important is an excellent portrait of Queen Victoria in the early part of her reign. It is the work of "Lieut.-Col. Cadogan," and was begun on the wall of a guardroom—at Windsor, I fancy. The surface of the wall was cut off, the picture finished, and it now hangs, a fine work of art but a tremendous weight, in the place of honour. There is an admirable oil-colour of the old Duke of Wellington, showing a kindly old face looking down, a pleasant difference from the alert aquiline profile which most of his portraits show. There are prints of other celebrated generals, mostly Guardsmen, and an amusing caricature of three kings dining on guard. It is a very unfurnished guardroom, with a bare floor, in which their Majesties are being entertained, but the enthusiasm with which the officers are drinking their health makes up for the surroundings. A key to the print hangs hard by, but the names attached to the various figures are said to have been written in joke. Many of the pictures are sporting prints and hunting caricatures; but the original of Vanity Fair's sketch of Dan Godfrey is in one corner; and a strange old picture of a battle, painted on a tea-tray, hangs over the door.
On either side of the looking-glass, above the mantelpiece, are the list of officers on duties and the orders for the guard, the latter with a glass over them, which is supposed to have been cracked in Marlborough's time. Some very admirably arranged caricatures, with explanatory notes, are bound into a series of red volumes and kept in a glazed set of shelves, and these, with a number of blue-bound volumes of The Pall Mall Magazine, form the greater portion of the library available for the officers on guard.
As the hands of the clock near eleven, the butler, who has been handing round "pegs" in long tumblers, takes up his position by the door. Military discipline is inexorable, and we (the guests) know that we must be out of the precincts of the guard by eleven o'clock. We say good-night to our hosts, and as we go downstairs we hear the clank of swords being buckled on.
Outside in the courtyard a sergeant and a drummer and a man with a lantern are waiting for the officer to go the rounds.
[XXXI]
THE OLD BULL AND BUSH
There is no side of London life that has died out more completely, so far as the upper classes are concerned, than the visits to the old tea-gardens which used to be the resort of the well-to-do classes from the days of King Charles II. up to the beginning of the last century. Bagginnage Wells, to which Nell Gwynne first brought the bucks, is only a name now, but Coleman, in his comedy, Bon-ton, defined good tone as to