THE HANS CRESCENT HOTEL
If I had to set an examination paper on the art of dining, one of
the questions I should certainly ask the examinee would be: "What
occupation or amusement would you suggest for your guests after a
dinner at a restaurant on Sunday?" The Hans Crescent Hotel management
have answered this question in a practical way; and not the least
pleasant part of a dinner at the smart hotel Sloane Street way is
the coffee and liqueur and cigarette taken under the palms in the
winter garden, where the red-shaded lamps throw a gentle light, and M.
Casano's band playing Czibulka's waltz-whisper, "Songe d'amour après le
bal," sends one back in a dream to the days when an evening of dancing
was a foretaste of the seventh heaven, and every woman was a possible
divinity.
The Editor does not write long letters, but the card with his initials
at the bottom gave me place and time, and told me that I should find
myself one of a _partie carrée_. What was the exact reason of the
dinner that the good Editor gave to the gracious lady and the handsome
niece and myself, I do not know; but I rather think that it was a
propitiatory offering made for non-appearance on the editorial tricycle
when warned for escort duty to the gracious lady, who had gone that
day for a long bicycle ride. If it was so, the dinner at the Hans
Crescent Hotel, plus the excuse given, whether it was church-going or
letter-writing, did not save the Editor during the evening from little
barbed conversational shafts as to sloth and laziness and the evil
habit of lying late in bed on the Sabbath morning.
I never commit the unpardonable offence of being late for dinner, and
three minutes before my time I was waiting in the oak-panelled hall,
which, with its stained-glass window, big staircase with a balcony
at the back, its palms and great fireplace, always looks to me like
an elaborate "set" for a scene in some comedy. The hands of the
clock stole on to eight o'clock, and that feeling of righteousness
which comes to the man who is in time when he believes that his
fellow-creatures are late fell on me, when, on a sudden, M. Diette,
the manager of the hotel, grey of hair and moustache, a black tie
under his "Shakspeare" collar, and a faultless frock-coat, appeared,
and recognising me, asked me whether by chance I was the gentleman for
whom the Editor and two ladies had been waiting some ten minutes in
the drawing-room. So it came that when I went into the drawing-room,
where the two ladies were looking at the brocades in the panels and the
editorial eye was fixed on the clock on the mantelpiece, it was I who
had to stumble through apologies, and I felt conscious that my tale of
waiting in the hall sounded hideously improbable.
M. Diette himself showed us to our table in the dining-room, which
is as near a reproduction of an old baronial hall as modern comfort,
electric light, and civilisation will allow. The baron of old, in the
days when each man cut his own portion off the roast meat with his
dagger, might have been able to boast of the open fireplace in green
Connemara marble and the panelled walls, but the handsome frieze and
the carved oak pillars would have been beyond his artistic dreams. He
would probably have preferred rushes to the Oriental rugs that half
cover the oak floor, and he would certainly have thought the palmery
seen through the open French window in a glow of rosy light a vision
called up by some magician.
The Editor, stroking his pointed beard with satisfaction, was reading
through the menu, the gracious lady and the handsome niece were noting,
one by one, the celebrities dining at the other tables, and the head
waiter was standing watching the Editor with the calm but deferential
confidence an artist shows when an important patron is inspecting his
work. A minor servitor, a thin tape of gold on the collar of his livery
coat and wearing white gloves, was also in attendance, and the overture
in the way of _hors-d'œuvre à la Russe_ was before us.
In quick succession our ladies had named the tall, slim, titled lady
in black, who had come in leaning on a stick; the good-looking young
musical critic, who was entertaining "Belle" and a very pretty girl; a
newly-married Earl and his wife; the handsome stockbroker and his wife,
who in the summer are to be found not far from Maidenhead Bridge, and
at whose table were sitting the most hospitable of up-river hostesses
and her son; a millionaire, who was entertaining a tableful of guests;
and one or two titled couples whom the gracious lady knew, but whose
names meant nothing to me. I was able to add my quota by pointing out
a steward of the Jockey Club, at whose table was the owner of the good
horse Bendigo.
The Editor, having learned that we all preferred for the moment claret
to champagne, put down the menu with a little sigh of anticipatory
gratitude, and ran his finger half-way down a page on the wine list.
This was the menu which the gracious lady looked at, and then handed on
to me:--
Hors-d'œuvre à la Russe.
Consommé Brunoise à la Royale.
Potage en tortue.
Suprême de saumon à la Chambord.
Tournedos à la Montgador.
Poularde à la Demi-Doff.
Caille rôti sur canapé.
SALADE.
Flageolets Mtre. d'Hôtel. Bombe Chateaubriand.
Corbeilles de friandises.
The handsome niece had approved of the people at the other tables as
being most of them interesting and good-looking, had said she liked
the table with its decoration of a ring of yellow flowers and leaves
drawn round the basket of _friandises_, and we began dinner with good
appetite and good temper.
The clear soup with its patchwork ground of minutely chopped vegetables
seen through the amber of its liquid was excellent and hot; the
fish deserved a special word for its sauce, in the making of which
an artist's hand had been employed; and the _tournedos_ with their
attendant "fixings," to use an Americanism, a symphony in rich browns
with the scarlet of the tomato to relieve it, gave no loophole for
captious criticism. We had been talking of the respective merits
of houseboats and cottages as summer residences, and from that had
drifted on to the subject of the wonderful steam launch that the Editor
owns, and inventions generally. The gracious lady had said her say on
the wonders she knew of; and the handsome niece, not to be outdone,
described the invention of the age through which by means of a little
metal case half the size of the smallest pill box, every man is to
make his own soda-water, which is to supersede all other inventions
as a fuse for big guns, and is going to drive dynamite out of the
field; and I, fired by the spirit of healthy emulation, had just
started an account of the flying machine by which I hoped to reach
Mars, to which the ladies, not noticing the twinkle in the Editor's
eyes, were listening gravely, when the waiter brought the _poularde
à la Demi-Doff_. The Editor was the only one of us who took any, and
he, in very excellent French, told the head waiter, who was hovering
round, that he thought it good. Whether it was that the gracious
lady had caught the tail-end of the editorial smile at my Munchausen
flying-machine story, or whether the non-appearance of the tricycle was
remembered, it matters not; but the Editor was gravely warned not to
talk Hindustani at the dinner-table.
The quails were a trifle over-cooked, and the artistic hand which had
made the sauce for the salmon had not mixed the salad, which was too
vinegary. I think our negative criticism must have hurt the feelings
of the waiter, who probably paused on the way from the kitchen to wipe
away a tear, for the _flageolets_, excellently cooked, were not quite
as hot as they should have been. Then the dinner got into its stride
again, for the _bombe_ was admirable.
The band had been making music for the past half-hour in the
winter-garden, and the diners at the various tables had gradually
left the oaken hall for the tables, each labelled with the number of
the corresponding dining-tables and name of the host, reserved under
the rosy lamps and the palms. The violins played with a delightful
softness, the rings of cigarette smoke curled and vanished up towards
the glass dome. From table to table the men went, saying a word here,
staying for a chat there; and at last, when the little band had played
Gounod's "Ave Maria," and ended with the wail of Miska's "Czardas," it
was time to gather in the hall to say good-night and be off homewards
to the land of Nod. This was the bill that I asked the Editor to let
me glance at:--Four dinners at 10s. 6d., £2: 2s.; three bottles claret,
£1: 10s.; cafés, 3s.; liqueurs, 3s.; total, £3: 18s.
8_th March_.
* * * * *
Mr. Francis Taylor has now taken Mons. Diette's place as manager. Mons.
Heiligenstein, as chef, rules the roast, and boiled, and fried.