THE HOLBORN
The American Comedian and myself stood at a club window and looked
out on London. He was rehearsing, and so enjoyed the rare privilege
of having his evenings free to spend as he liked. I had no business,
except to get myself a dinner somewhere, so we agreed to eat ours in
company.
The difficulty was to decide where to dine. The Comedian dined at one
club or another every day of his life before going to the theatre, so a
club dinner was out of the question. Not having a lady to take out we
agreed that we did not care to go to any of the "smart" restaurants: we
wanted something a little more elaborate than a grill-room would give
us, and more amusing company than we were likely to find at the smaller
dining places we knew of.
I think that the suggestion to dine at the cheap _table d'hôte_ dinner
at one of the very large restaurants, to listen to the music, and look
at the people dining, came from me. Our minds made up on this point,
there was the difficulty of selecting the restaurant, so we agreed to
toss up, and the spin of the coin eventually settled upon the Holborn
Restaurant.
In the many-coloured marble hall, with its marble staircase springing
from either side, a well-favoured gentleman with a close-clipped grey
beard was standing, a sheet of paper in his hand, and waved us towards
a marble portico, through which we passed to the grand saloon with its
three galleries supported by marble pillars. "A table for two," said a
_maître d'hôtel_, and we were soon seated at a little table near the
centre of the room, at which a waiter in dress clothes, with a white
metal number at his buttonhole and a pencil behind his ear, was in
attendance waiting for orders. The _table d'hôte_ dinner was what we
required, and then I noticed that I had to ask for the wine list, and
that it was not given me opened at the champagnes, as is usually the
custom of waiters.
The menu, which on a large sheet of stiff paper peeps out from a deep
border of advertisements, is printed both in French and in English.
This is the English side of it on the night we dined:--
SOUPS.
Purée of Hare aux croûtons.
Spaghetti.
FISH.
Suprême of Sole Joinville.
Plain Potatoes.
Darne de saumon. Rémoulade Sauce.
ENTRÉES.
Bouchées à l'Impératrice.
Sauté Potatoes.
Mutton Cutlets à la Reforme.
REMOVE.
Ribs of Beef and Horseradish.
Brussels Sprouts.
ROAST.
Chicken and York Ham.
Chipped Potatoes.
SWEETS.
Caroline Pudding. St. Honoré Cake.
Kirsch Jelly.
ICE.
Neapolitan.
Cheese. Celery.
DESSERT.
We agreed to drink claret, and I picked out a wine third or fourth down
on the list.
The Comedian said he was hungry, and I told him that I was glad to hear
it, for it might check the miraculous tales which he generally produces
at meal-times.
With the Spaghetti soup, which was brown and strong, the Comedian
told me the tale of the mummy of one of the Ptolemies who lived some
thousands of years B.C. which was revivified in the Boston Museum by
having clam soup administered to it. It was not one of the Comedian's
best efforts, and I capped it easily by a tale of the Japanese
jelly-fish soup which is supposed to confer everlasting life, and which
tastes and looks like hot water.
The _darne de saumon_ was rather a pallid slice, which I attributed
to package in ice; but which the Comedian said was owing to its having
overgrown its strength. "And that reminds me," he had just begun when
I had the presence of mind to anticipate him, and to tell the story
of the 140 lbs. mahseer which it took my uncle, on my mother's side,
three days to land from the Ganges. I felt bound to tell him that the
anecdote he subsequently related of a tarpon, that his first cousin,
twice removed, had hooked, towing a steamer's lifeboat from the
Floridas to Long Island, sounded like an invention.
To avoid friction we talked of our neighbours. Next door to us was
a merry little party of three ladies, one a widow, and a gentleman
in a red tie, and the Comedian invented quite a storyette, after the
manner of Dickens, of the kindly brother taking his three sisters
out to dinner on the birthday of one of them--no brother would order
champagne for his sisters except on the occasion of a birthday, he
said. A couple, in mourning, were husband and wife, and the Comedian,
being in the vein, wove a pathetic little story round the unconscious
couple. Two young men, in spick-and-span black coats, with orchids in
their buttonholes, dining with two pretty girls, were groomsmen from
some wedding entertaining two of the bridesmaids. Some nodding plumes
showing over the second balcony the Comedian declared must belong to
the "principal boy" of some provincial pantomime.
The cutlet of mutton that was brought to each of us was small, and had
suffered from having to journey some way from the kitchen; but it was
well cooked, and there was unlimited sauce with it. When I told the
Comedian the established fact that at the Cape the sheep have to have
wheels fitted to their tails, he pretended that in New England there is
a breed that draw their tails in miniature waggons. I flatter myself,
however, that my tale of the Ovis Polii, the perpendicular shot and the
three thousand feet fall down a Cashmerian gully left him breathless.
To save the Comedian from brain-weariness caused by invention I drew
the waiter into conversation, and, beginning with the band--a good
band, but much too loud--learned that we should find the time each
piece was played on the programme which was on the back of the menu.
It was not a full night, our waiter told us, but we were early, it was
only 7.15, and the saloon would fill up presently; and then he drifted
into wonderful figures of the number of guests the Holborn could hold
at one time. We wondered inwardly, but sent him off to get us our
beef and Brussels sprouts. "When I was out with Buffalo Bill----" the
Comedian began as the waiter returned; but as my only story to go with
beef is a Wildebeeste story, not one of my best, I mentioned somewhat
austerely, that our helpings were growing cold. Then the Comedian,
who was invincible in appetite, ate a helping of chicken and ham and
reported favourably. Encouraged by this, I ate a slice of the ham
which, with a dash of champagne for sauce, was good. The Comedian told
rather a foolish story of a nigger robbing a hen-roost, which gave me
an opening to relate my celebrated anecdote of the Naval Brigade and
the chickens during the Zulu War, an anecdote which has been known to
make a rheumatic bishop and a deaf Chairman of Quarter Sessions laugh.
The sweets we took as read, and finished up our dinner with an ice, a
trifle too salt, I thought. The waiter had been disappointed at our
taking no sweets, but when we refused the offer of cheese and celery
and dessert, he was afraid that something must be the matter with us,
for most people at the Holborn eat their dinner steadily through.
The saloon had filled up as our waiter had predicted. There was a
howling swell with tuberoses in the buttonhole of his frock-coat and
a lordly moustache. There were two youngsters in dress clothes and
"made-up" ties making merry with two damsels. There was a pretty
actress--"she's going to play in our new piece. It's her first night
off from playing at the Frivolity, and she has come here to be quiet,"
said the Comedian. There was a business man from the north being
entertained by two City friends, and a host more diners whose history
we had not time to invent, for our waiter had taken the pencil from his
ear and was standing ready with a little book in his hand.
"Dinners, 7s.; attendance, 6d.; one bottle claret, 4s. 6d.; total,
12s." That was the bill our waiter gave us, and he said "Thank you"
very heartily for a shilling for himself.
I should have appreciated my dinner more if the Comedian had confined
his conversation to facts.
I regret to hear that the Comedian permitted himself to say, next day,
at the Club that it was a thousand pities that I could not tell a story
without exaggeration.
15_th February_.