Memories came flooding back of that moment of crisis which had found so many of our trusted statesmen ill-prepared, but, terrible as it was, had not caught the managers of London restaurants napping. I remembered the immense stores of Dutch lager beer which they had so providentially and so patriotically held in anticipation of the hour of need. Dutch beer, both light and dark, so that inveterate drinkers of Munich and Pilsener were enabled to face Armageddon almost without a jerk. They had other things ready too—Danish pâté de fois gras, Swiss liver sausages, Belgian pastries and the rest. It was in that dark hour, I suppose, that the Vienna steak set its face towards the steppes. But this was in 1914, and a good deal had happened since then. It appeared to me that the restaurant was not exactly au courant with international complications and the gastronomic consequences of the Peace. I felt entitled to further illumination.
"I don't feel at all certain," I told the man, "that I ought to eat a Petrograd steak. Is it a white steak?"
"Ah, no, not vite, not vite at all," he assured me. "Eet is underdone—not much, but a little underdone. Ver good mince-up."
"I absolutely refuse to eat a Red Petrograd steak," I declared. "Have you by any chance anything Jugo-Slavian on the menu?"
"Zere is ze jugged hare—"
"I think you misunderstand me," I interrupted; "this is a point of principle with me. Supposing I consume this Czecho-Slovakian mince-up and then have a piece of Stilton; there has been no war with Stilton, I fancy—"
"Ver good, ze Stilton," interjected the chorus.
"And coffee—'
"Turkish coffee?" he said.
"There you go again," I grumbled. "Whatever my attitude may be towards Vienna and Petrograd (and, mind you, I am not feeling at all bitter towards Vienna), my relations with Turkey are most certainly strained."