But all is now changed. Gone are the shilling tables-d'hôte and their ravishing dishes. Gone is the pint of vin ordinaire at tenpence. Will they ever come again, those gigantic, lamp-lit evenings, those Homeric bob's-worths of hors-d'œuvre, soup, omelette, chicken, cheese and coffee? Shall we ever again cross Oxford Street to the old German Quarter and drink their excellent Pilsener and Munchner, in heartening steins, and eat their leber-wurst sandwiches, and smoke their long, thin cigars? Or seat ourselves in the Schweitzerhof, where four wonderful dishes were placed before you at a cost of tenpence by some dastard spy, in the pay of that invisible-cloak artist, the English Bolo?—who doubtless reported to Berlin our conversation about Phyllis Monkman's hair and Billy Merson's technique. Nay, I think not. The blight of civilization is upon Soho. Many once cosy and memorable cafés are closed. Other places have altered their note and become uncomfortably English; while those that retain their atmosphere and their customers have considerably changed their menu and cuisine. One-and-ninepence is the lowest charge for a table-d'hôte—and pretty poor hunting at that. The old elaborate half-crown dinners are now less elaborate and cost four shillings. And the wine-lists—well, wouldn't they knock poor Omar off his perch? I don't know who bought Omar's drinks, or whether he paid for his own, but if he lived in Soho to-day he'd have a pretty thin time either way—unless the factory price for tents had increased in proportion with other things.
Gone, too, is the delicious atmosphere of laisser-faire that made Soho a refreshment of the soul for the visitors from Streatham and Ealing. Soho's patrons to-day have a furtive, guilty look about them. You see, they are trying to be happy in war-time. No more do you see in the cafés the cold-eyed anarchists and the petty bourgeois and artisans from the foreign warehouses of the locality. In their place are heavy-eyed women, placid and monosyllabic, and much khaki and horizon blue. Many of the British soldiers, officers and privates, are men who have not yet been out, and are experimenting with their French among the French girls who have taken the places of the swift-footed, gestic Luigi, François or Alphonse; others have come from France, where they have discovered the piquancy of French cooking, and desire no more the solidities of the "old English" chop-house.
Over all is an atmosphere of restraint. Gone are the furious argument and the preposterous accord. Gone are the colour and the loud lights and the evening noise. Soho is marking time, until the good days return—if ever. Not in 1917 do you see Old Compton Street as a line of warm and fragrant café-windows; instead, you stumble drunkenly through a dim, murky lane, and take your chance by pushing the first black door that exudes a smell of food. Gone, too, are those exotic foods that brought such zest to the jaded palate. The macaroni and spaghetti now being manufactured in London are poor substitutes for the real thing, being served in long, flat strips instead of in the graceful pipe form of other days. Camembert, Brie, Roquefort, Gruyère, Port Salut, Strachini and other enchanting cheeses are unobtainable; and you may cry in vain for edible snails and the savoury stew of frogs' legs. True, the Chinese café in Regent Street can furnish for the adventurous stomach such trifles as black eggs (guaranteed thirty years old), sharks' fins at seven shillings a portion, stewed seaweed, bamboo shoots, and sweet birds'-nests; but Regent Street is beyond the bounds of Soho.
Nevertheless, if you attend carefully, and if you are lucky, you may still catch in Old Compton Street a faint echo of its graces and picturesque melancholy. You may still see and hear the sombre Yid, the furious Italian, the yodelling Swiss, and the deprecating French, hanging about the dozen or so coffee-bars that have appeared since 1914. A few of these places existed in certain corners of London long before that date, but it is only lately that the Londoner has discovered them and called for more. The Londoner—I offer this fact to all students of national traits—must always lean when taking his refreshment. Certain gay and festive gentlemen, who constitute an instrument of order called the Central Control Board, forbid him to lean in those places where, of old, he was accustomed to lean; at any rate, he is only allowed to lean during certain defined hours. You might think that he would have gladly availed himself of this opportunity for resting awhile by sitting at a marble-topped table and drinking coffee or tea, or—horrid thought!—cocoa. But no; he isn't happy unless he leans over his refreshment; and the café-bar has supplied his demands. There is something in leaning against a bar which entirely changes one's outlook. You may sit at a table and drink whisky-and-soda, and yet not achieve a tithe of the expansiveness that is yours when you are leaning against a bar and drinking dispiriting stuff like coffee or sirop. Maybe the physical attitude reacts on the mind, and tightens up certain cords or sinews, or eases the blood-pressure; anyway, fears, doubts, and cautions seem to vanish in these little corners of France, and momentarily the old animation of Soho returns.
In these places you may perchance yet capture for a fleeting space the will-o'-the-wisperie of other days: movement and festal colour; laughter and quick tears; the warm jest and the darkling mystery that epitomize the city of all cities; and the wanton, rose-winged graces that flutter about the fair head of M'selle Lolotte, as she hands you your café nature and an April smile for sweetening, carry to you a breath of the glitter and spaciousness of old time. You do not know Lolotte, perhaps! Thousand commiserations, M'sieu! What damage! Is Lolotte lovely and delicate? But of a loveliness of the most ravishing! The shining hair and the eyes of the most disturbing! Lolotte is in direct descent from Mimi Pinson, half angel and half puss.
Soldiers of all the Allied armies gather about her crescent-shaped bar after half-past nine of an evening. The floor is sawdusted. The counter is sloppy with overflows of coffee. Lips and nose receive from the air that bitter tang derived only from the smoke of Maryland tobacco. The varied uniforms of the patrons make a harmony of debonair gaiety with the many-coloured bottles of cordials and sirops.
"Pardon, m'sieu!" cries the poilu, as he accidentally jogs the arm by which Sergeant Michael Cassidy is raising his coffee-cup.
"Oh, sarner fairy hang, mossoo! Moselle, donnay mwaw urn Granny Dean."
"M'sieu parle français, alors?"
"Ah, oui. Jer parle urn purr."