“What is grace? It seems like a prayer.”
“So it is, for your good behaviour,” I said.
“Do you always have it?”
“Yes, when we go out to dinner.”
“And not at home?”
“Oh no, we are only good like that and enjoy all that official ceremony at public dinners.”
He was much tickled at the idea, and likewise relieved that the King’s health was not being toasted with empty glasses.
Another public feast—the Dinner of the Society of Authors, in 1907—gave me still more food for mirth, besides intellectual and other enjoyment.
My seat at the top table placed me between Mr. Bernard Shaw and Lord Dunsany. Exactly opposite was one of the fork tables that filled the room, and gave accommodation to about two hundred and fifty guests. In the corner facing us sat a nice little old lady. Somehow she reminded me of a cock-sparrow. She was petite and fragile, with a perky little way, and her iron-grey hair was cut short. She looked at my neighbour on my left, consulted her programme, on which she read the name of Bernard Shaw, smiled with apparent delight, preened herself, and then the following conversation began:
Old Lady (beaming across table): “I do love your writing.”