"What on earth," I said to the waiter, who was standing a few yards off,
lost in a pensive dream of his native land--Switzerland, France, Italy?--
well, anyhow, lost in a pensive dream--"what on earth is a Petrograd
steak?"
The white napkin whisked like the scut of a rabbit, and he bounded to my
side. "Eet is mince-up," he said melodramatically. "Ze Petrograd steak ver
good. Two minute--mince-up."
"But isn't that a Vienna steak?" I asked.
A spasm of pain passed over his face. "Before ze War," he whispered, "yes,
Vienna steak. Now we call it ze Petrograd. You vill have one? Yes? Two
minute."
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."
"No, not strained, ze Turkish coffee," he cried eagerly; "eet has ze
grounds."
"So have I," I told him; "we will call it the Macedonian coffee. It is you
who insisted in obtruding these international relations on my simple lunch,
and I mean to do the thing thoroughly. Better a dish of Croat Serbs where
love is than a bifteck Petrograd--Never mind, go and get the thing."
When he returned with it I fell to, but my thoughts remained with the
waiter. What a man! With his dispassionate judgment, his calm sane outlook
on men and affairs, shaken a little perhaps in 1914, but since then
undisturbed, was he not cut out above all others to settle the vexed
frontier lines of Europe? I wondered whether Lord ROBERT CECIL might not
possibly make use of him. I was tempted to try him still further.
"Have you ever heard of Mr. J.M. KEYNES?" I asked him when he brought me
the Bessarabian coffee.
"Mr. KEYNES I not know. He not come here, I zink."
"Or the Treaty of London?"
"I vill ask ze manager."
"Or President WILSON?"
A brilliant smile of illumination lit up his features.
"American, is he not?" he said. "Ver reech, ze Americans."
This saddened me a little. He was not then absolutely complete. There was a
faint tarnish on the lustre of his innocence. He was scarcely perhaps
suited for the League of Nations after all. Lighting an Albanian cigarette
I asked him for my bill.
* * * * *