Jimmy—I hope he won't mind my writing him down as Jimmy; you have only to look at him to know that he cannot be James or Jim—Jimmy radiates cheer; whether in his own inn or in other people's. Among his well-smoked furniture and walls men talk freely and listen keenly. There is no obscene reticence, no cunning reserve. Unpleasant men would be miserable at "The Chequers"; they would seek some other biding-place where self-revelation is kept within diplomatic bounds.
Believe me, "The Mermaid" was not the end of the great taverns. What things have we seen done and heard said at the bar of "The Chequers." What famous company has gathered there on Sunday evenings, artists, literary men, musicians, philosophers, entering into fierce argument and vociferous agreement with the local stalwarts. In these troubled times people are mentally slack. They readily accept mob opinion, to save themselves the added strain of thinking; and eagerly adopt the attitude that it is idle to concern oneself with intellectual affairs in these days; so that there is now no sensible talk to be had in bar or club. Wherefore, it is a relief to possess one place—and that an inn—where one may be sure of finding company that will join with relish in serious talk and put their whole lives in a jest. Such delight and refreshment do I find at this inn, that scarcely a Saturday passes but I board the car and glide to "The Chequers" in—well, just beyond the London Postal District.
RELICS
The turning-out of the crowded drawers of an old bureau or cabinet is universally known as the prime pastime of the faded spinster; a pastime in which the starved spirit may exercise itself among delicious melancholies and wraiths of spent joys. Well, I am not yet faded, and I am not a spinster; but I have fallen to the lure of "turning out." I have lately "turned out"—not the musty souvenirs of fifty years ago, love, fifty years ago, but the still warm fragments of A.D. 1912.
The other day, while searching irately in my fumed-oak rolltop desk for a publisher's royalty statement which he had not sent me, I opened at random a little devil of a drawer who conceals his being in the right-hand lower corner. And lo! out stepped, airily, that well-polished gentleman, Mr. Nineteen-Twelve. My anger over the missing accounts was at once soothed. In certain chapters of this book I have harked back to the years before 1914, and it may be that you conceive me as a doddering old bore: a praiser of times past. But what would you have? You have not surely the face to ask me to praise times present?
So I took a long look at Mr. Nineteen-Twelve, and went thoroughly through him. My first discovery was an old menu. My second discovery was a bunch of menus. You won't get exasperated—will you?—if I print here the menu of a one-and-sixpenny dinner, eaten on a hot June night in Greek Street:—
Hors-d'œuvre varié.
· ·
Consommé Henri IV.
Crème Parmentier.
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Saumon bouillé.
Concombre.
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Filet mignon.
Pommes sautés.
Haricots verts.
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Poulet en casserole.
Salade saison.
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Fraises aux liqueurs.
Glace vanille.
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Fromages.
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Dessert.
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Café.