|There are people who can hoard a secret as misers hoard gold. They can
hoard it not for the sake of the secret, but for the love of secrecy,
for the satisfaction of feeling that they have got something locked up
that they could spend if they chose without being any the poorer and
that other people would enjoy knowing. Their pleasure is in not spending
what they can afford to spend. It is a pleasure akin to the economy of
the Scotsman, which, according to a distinguished member of that race,
finds its perfect expression in taking the tube when you can afford a
cab. But the gift of secrecy is rare. Most of us enjoy secrets for the
sake of telling them. We spend our secrets as Lamb's spendthrift spent
his money--while they are fresh. The joy of creating an emotion in other
people is too much for us. We like to surprise them, or shock them, or
please them as the case may be, and we give away the secret with which
we have been entrusted with a liberal hand and a solemn request “to say
nothing about it.” We relish the luxury of telling the secret, and leave
the painful duty of keeping it to the other fellow. We let the horse out
and then solemnly demand that the stable door shall be shut so that
it shan't escape, I have done it myself--often. I have no doubt that
I shall do it again. But not to-day. I have a secret to reveal, but I
shall not reveal it. I shall not reveal it for entirely selfish reasons,
which will appear later. You may conceive me going about choking with
mystery. The fact is that I have made a discovery. Long years have
I spent in the search for the perfect restaurant, where one can
dine wisely and well, where the food is good, the service plain, the
atmosphere restful, and the prices moderate--in short, the happy
mean between the giddy heights of the Ritz or the Carlton, and the
uncompromising cheapness of Lockhart's. In those extremes I find no
satisfaction.
It is not merely the dearness of the Ritz that I reject. I dislike its
ostentatious and elaborate luxury. It is not that I am indifferent to
a good table. Mrs Poyser was thankful to say that there weren't many
families that enjoyed their “vittles” more than her's did, and I can
claim the same modest talent for myself. I am not ashamed to say that
I count good eating as one of the chief joys of this transitory life. I
could join very heartily in Peacock's chorus:
“How can a man, in his life of a span,
Do anything better than dine.”
Give me a satisfactory' dinner, and the perplexities of things unravel
themselves magically, the clouds break, and a benign calm overspreads
the landscape. I would not go so far as the eminent professor, who
insisted that eating was the greatest of all the pleasures in life.
That, I think, is exalting the stomach unduly. And I can conceive few
things more revolting than the Roman practice of prolonging a meal by
taking emetics. But, on the other hand, there is no need to apologise
for enjoying a good dinner. Quite virtuous people have enjoyed good
dinners. I see no necessary antagonism between a healthy stomach and
a holy mind. There was a saintly man once in this city--a famous man,
too--who was afflicted with so hearty an appetite that, before going out
to dinner, he had a square meal to take the edge off his hunger, and to
enable him to start even with the other guests. And it is on record
that when the ascetic converts of the Oxford movement went to lunch with
Cardinal Wiseman in Lent they were shocked at the number of fish courses
that hearty trencherman and eminent Christian went through in a season
of fasting, “I fear,” said one of them, “that there is a lobster salad
side to the Cardinal.” I confess, without shame, to a lobster salad side
too. A hot day and a lobster salad--what happier conjunction can we look
for in a plaguey world?
But, in making this confession, I am neither _gourmand_ nor _gourmet_.
Extravagant dinners bore me, and offend what I may call my economic
conscience; I have little sense of the higher poetry of the kitchen, and
the great language of the _menu_ does not stir my pulse. I do not ask
for lyrics at the table. I want good, honest prose. I think that Hazlitt
would have found me no unfit comrade on a journey. He had no passion for
talk when afoot, but he admitted that there was one subject which it was
pleasant to discuss on a journey, and that was what one should have
for supper at the inn. It is a fertile topic that grows in grace as
the shadows lengthen and the limbs wax weary. And Hazlitt had the right
spirit. His mind dwelt upon plain dishes--eggs and a rasher, a rabbit
smothered in onions, or an excellent veal cutlet. He even spoke
approvingly of Sancho's choice of a cow-heel. I do not go all the way
with him in his preferences. I should argue with him fiercely against
his rabbit and onions. I should put the case for steak and onions with
conviction, and I hope with convincing eloquence. But the root of the
matter was in him. He loved plain food plainly served, and I am proud to
follow his banner. And it is because I have found my heart's desire at
the Mermaid, that I go about burdened with an agreeable secret. I feel
when I enter its portals a certain sober harmony and repose of things.
I stroke the noble cat that waits me, seated on the banister, and
rises, purring with dignity, under my caress. I say “Good evening” to
the landlord who greets me with a fine eighteenth-century bow, at once
cordial and restrained, and waves me to a seat with a grave motion of
his hand. No frowsy waiter in greasy swallow-tail descends on me; but a
neat-handed Phyllis, not too old nor yet too young, in sober black dress
and white cuffs, attends my wants, with just that mixture of civility
and aloofness that establishes the perfect relationship--obliging,
but not familiar, quietly responsive to a sign, but not talkative. The
napery makes you feel clean to look at it, and the cutlery shines like a
mirror, and cuts like a Seville blade. And then, with a nicely balanced
dish of hors d'ouvres, or, in due season, a half-a-dozen oysters, the
modest four-course table d'hôte begins, and when at the end you light
your cigarette over your cup of coffee, you feel that you have not only
dined, but that you have been in an atmosphere of plain refinement,
touched with the subtle note of a personality.
And the bill? Sir, you would be surprised at its modesty. But I shall
not tell you. Nor shall I tell you where you will find the Mermaid. It
may be in Soho or off the Strand, or in the neighbourhood of Lincoln's
Inn, or it may not be in any of these places. I shall not tell you
because I sometimes fancy it is only a dream, and that if I tell it
I shall shatter the illusion, and that one night I shall go into the
Mermaid and find its old English note of kindly welcome and decorous
moderation gone, and that in its place there will be a noisy, bustling,
popular restaurant with a band, from which I shall flee. When it is
“discovered” it will be lost, as the Rev. Mr Spalding would say. And so
I shall keep its secret. I only purr it to the cat who arches her back
and purrs understanding in response. It is the bond of freemasonry
between us.
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