THE ST. GEORGE'S CAFÉ (ST. MARTIN'S LANE)
Whenever I have come across a Philistine who has eaten a vegetarian
dinner, he always professes that he narrowly escaped with his life.
Now this I knew must be an invention, and I was anxious to try for
myself whether a dinner of herbs meant contentment or whether it did
not, so I approached one of the high priests of the order, and asked
which would be the restaurant in London at which it would be wisest
to try the experiment. The answer I received was not of the most
encouraging. The high priest had no very great faith in the cooking at
any of the restaurants, and very kindly suggested that, if I wanted to
try vegetarian diet, I should come and pay him a visit. If, however,
I preferred the restaurants, the two he would suggest were the Ideal
Café, 185 Tottenham Court Road, or the St. George's Café, St. Martin's
Lane.
Before trying either I thought I would reconnoitre both. I passed the
Tottenham Court Road café early in the morning, when neither people
nor cafés look at their best. On the brown brick front was a gilt
device telling that it was a social club for gentlemen and ladies, and
I gathered from legends on the windows that there was a ladies' chess
club, and that the café was a restaurant as well; indeed, was all
things to all eating men and women; for on the bill of fare exposed
in the window there were the prices of fish and fowl, as well as such
entirely vegetarian dishes as haricot and potato pie and mushroom
omelette. There was something of the appearance of a pastrycook's
about the windows on the ground floor, and a damsel was "dressing"
one of them with yellow cloth, to act no doubt as a background to the
delicacies presently to be exposed. I caught sight through the window
of a counter with tea appurtenances on it.
It was in the afternoon that I made my second reconnaissance, this time
in the direction of St. Martin's Lane, and I found the St. George's
Restaurant to be a red brick building of an Elizabethan type, with
leaded glass windows and with a sign, whereon was inscribed "The famous
house for coffee," swinging from a wrought-iron support. The windows on
the ground floor had palms in them, and the gaze of the vulgar was kept
from the inner _arcana_ by neat little curtains. From the bill of fare
I gathered that I could obtain such luxuries as grilled mushrooms and
seakale cream, which cost 10d., or mushroom omelette and young carrots
sauté, which were 1s., or Yorkshire pudding with sage and onions and
new potatoes for 7d. Before I moved on I ascertained that here also was
a ladies' chess club, and that on the first floor was a ladies' room.
I made up my mind that the St. George's should be my dining place, and
the next question was how to secure some one to dine with me.
I had to be present that afternoon at a committee for a benefit
theatrical performance, and found half a dozen of my fellow
committee-men assembled. During a pause in the business one of them
remarked that the Savoy dinner about which I had written seemed to have
been an excellent feast. This gave me my opportunity, and mentioning
that I was going to do another dinner for publication that evening,
asked if any one would care to dine with me. A pleased look came to at
least four faces, but all were too polite to speak first. Then I said
what the dinner was to be. One man had to go to a Masonic banquet;
another was dining at a farewell feast to a coming Benedick; another
had promised his dear old aunt to spend that evening with her: the
guests bidden to the scriptural feast were not more prompt in excuses.
I went on to my Service club and found there a subaltern who, in
old days, had been in my company, and who would have followed me,
or preceded me, into any danger of battle without the tremble of an
eyelid. Him I urged to come with me, telling him that a man can only
die once, and other such inspiriting phrases, and had nearly persuaded
him when old General Bundobust joined in the conversation and told
a story of how Joe Buggins, of the Madras Fusiliers, once ate a
vegetarian dinner and swelled up afterwards till he was as big as a
balloon. That finished the subaltern, and he refused to go.
I had to go by myself. I opened the leaded glass door of the St.
George's and found myself in a long room with plenty of palms and
a general look of being cared for, with a counter and many long
white-clothed tables, with seats for about half a dozen at each. There
were little black-dressed waitresses flitting about, and at the tables
a fair sprinkling of men, neither obtrusively smart nor obtrusively
shabby, who were dining, and who nearly all kept their hats on. I
drifted down to the end of the room and sat at a table and told the
waitress in rather a feeble way that I should like the best vegetarian
dinner that the house could give me. The waitress suggested that I had
better go upstairs to the table-d'hôte room, and I gathered up my goods
and chattels and went like a lamb.
The room on the first floor was a nice bright little room, with white
overmantels to the fireplaces, with one corner turned into a bamboo
arbour, with painted tambourines and little mandolines and pictures,
and an oaken clock on the light-papered walls, with red-shaded candles
on the tables set for four or six. Two pretty girls in black, one
with a white flower, one with a red, were in charge, and another girl
peered out from a little railed desk by the door. In the background
was a glimpse of a kitchen, behind a glass screen where some one was
whistling "Sister Mary Jane's Top Note," and the two little waitresses
were constantly hurrying to this screen with a "Hurry up with that
pigeon's egg," or a "Be quick, now, with those flageolets." My table
was beautifully clean, with a little bunch of flowers on it, with a
portentously large decanter and an array of glasses.
The waitress with the red flower put down a little bill of fare before
me, and I learned that my dinner was to be--
Hors-d'œuvre.
Mulligatawny soup or Carrot soup.
Flageolets with cream and spinach.
Fried duck's egg and green peas.
Lent pie or Stewed fruit.
Mixed salad.
Cheese.
Dessert.
Some olives in a small plate were put down before me, and through force
of habit I took up the black-covered wine list on the table. The first
items were orange wine, rich raisin wine, ginger wine, black currant
wine, red currant wine, raspberry wine, elderberry wine. I put it down
with a sigh, and ordered a bottle of ginger-beer. Then while I munched
at an olive I looked round at my fellow-guests. There was a sister of
mercy in her black and white, with her gold cross showing against her
sombre garment; there was a tall, thin gentleman who would not have
done for any advertisement of anybody's fattening food; there was a
young lady in a straw hat with a many-coloured ribbon to it, who was so
absorbed in an illustrated paper that she was neglecting her dinner;
there were two other ladies enjoying their stewed fruit immensely; and
there were two other gentlemen of the type I had seen below, but who
were not wearing their hats.
The carrot soup, which was the soup I chose, was quite hot and was
satisfying. The spinach was not up to club form and the flageolets
topping it did not look inviting, but I made an attack on it and got
half through, not because I wanted to eat it, but because I did not
want to hurt the waitress's feelings. The duck's egg was well fried,
and I enjoyed it, though the peas were a trifle hard. Then I fell
into disgrace with the waitress, for I would have neither Lent pie
nor stewed fruit, pleading that I never ate sweets. "What, not stewed
fruit?" said the little girl with the red rose; and I knew that in her
opinion I had missed the crown of the feast. A little bowl of lettuce
and cucumber, with a bottle of salad dressing, was put in front of me,
and I mixed my own salad. Then I ate a slice of Gruyère cheese, and
finished with some almonds and raisins that were grouped on a platter
round an orange. It being, as the sign-board had told me, a noted
coffee-house, I ordered a small cup of the liquid, and said "Black," in
reply to the waitress's question.
It was capital coffee undoubtedly, and, having finished it, I asked for
my bill. The waitress pulled out a little morocco-covered memorandum
book, and presented me with this:--Ginger-beer, 2d.; coffee, 2d.;
dinner, 1s. 6d.; total, 1s. 10d. I paid at the desk, and went forth
feeling rather empty.
As I am writing, twenty-four hours after the event, I may conclude that
Joe Buggins's, of the Madras Fusiliers, fate will not be mine.
19_th April_.