CHANGES IN CLUB-LIFE AND WAYS
Amongst the changes which, during the last thirty years, have
transformed the West End of London, one of the most salient has been the
great increase in the number of clubs. Palatial buildings, each capable
of accommodating hundreds of members, now occupy a very great portion of
Pall Mall and Piccadilly. Although in other days the latter was by no
means a very clubbable thoroughfare, it now, at one end at least,
consists largely of clubs, most of them, however, differing widely from
those of an older age.
The original conception of a London club was a retreat to which West End
men might betake themselves, certain that the troubles and worries of
the outside world would not follow into a building which they regarded
as a temple of dignified seclusion and repose. Perhaps the best
description of a club as it existed in former days was that given by a
witty Bishop, who defined it as a place “where women ceased from
troubling and the weary were at rest.” Another amusing definition was
that once given by George Augustus Sala. “A club,” said he, “is a weapon
used by savages to keep the white woman at a distance.”
A club should certainly form a safe retreat from the cares of the world,
but it need not necessarily be a shrine of crystallized selfishness.
The aim of club-life should be a sort of defensive alliance tacitly
concluded between a number of individuals, all moving in the same sphere
of life, against the troubles and perturbations by which humanity is
assailed. The fundamental charter of the perfect club ought to be an
unassuming, unobtrusive, and unenvious equality.
Within the last twenty-five years or so the spirit of London club-life
has entirely changed; the old-fashioned club-man, whose whole life was
bound up with one or other of these institutions, is now, indeed,
practically extinct. In the days when the type in question was a feature
of the West End, the great majority of men living in that quarter of
London had no occupation, or, if they had one, it was of such an easy
and accommodating kind as to allow them plenty of spare time for
lounging. According to a modern estimate, however, few of the old
club-men were rich. The majority usually possessed from four to eight
hundred a year, which in the past was considered a comfortable enough
income for a bachelor. Living in rooms—a sitting-room and bedroom of a
very unluxurious kind, compared with the bachelor flats of to-day—the
life of a confirmed frequenter of clubland was uneventful but easy. As a
rule, he got up late and lounged about till lunch-time, when he would
betake himself to his favourite resort, and remain there till dinner,
perhaps indulging in a leisurely stroll in the afternoon. About seven he
would return to his rooms, dress, and then go back to his club to dine,
after which, except when he went to a party or theatre, he would sit
with congenial spirits, often till the small-hours of the morning, a
good deal of brandy and soda being incidentally consumed. It must be
remembered that there were fewer amusements in those days—no motors, no
golf, no restaurants, few theatres, and no palatial music-halls; also,
the City had not yet begun to exercise its fascinating and too often
costly spell over the inhabitants of the West End of the town.
Strange-looking customers were some of the club-men of that bygone
day—old fogies with buff waistcoats, blue coats, and brass buttons;
heavy swells with peg-top trousers and long, drooping whiskers;
horsy-looking characters with spurs and bespattered riding-boots. No
wonder that in a description of a certain club decorated with trophies
of the chase there appeared the statement that “many old beasts of
members might be seen in the hall.” This, of course, arose through the
carelessness of a printer.
To realize what most of the old-fashioned West End club-men were like,
one has only to turn to the pages of Captain Gronow’s “Reminiscences.”
Writing in 1866, Captain Gronow says:
“How insufferably odious, with a few brilliant exceptions, were the
dandies of forty years ago! They were generally middle-aged, some even
elderly men, had large appetites, gambled freely, and had no luck; and
why they arrogated to themselves the right of setting up their fancied
superiority on a self-raised pedestal, and despising their betters,
Heaven only knows. They hated everybody and abused everybody, and would
sit together in White’s bow-window or the pit-boxes at the Opera. They
swore a good deal, never laughed, had their own particular slang, looked
hazy after dinner, and had most of them been patronized at one time or
other by Brummell or the Prince Regent.”
The old-fashioned club-man had comparatively few interests, and even
those were of a comparatively narrow kind. His life, indeed, was centred
in his club, which often seemed to him the very centre and pivot of the
universe.
As compared with those of to-day, the clubs of the past were very
primitive in their arrangements, though not a few had that peculiar
atmosphere of old-world comfort which is generally lacking in our more
hurried and strenuous existence. The clubs of the past were almost
without exception sombre and occasionally dingy resorts, entirely devoid
of bright-coloured decorations, whilst very few prints or pictures
adorned their walls.
When modern improvements were first suggested in clubs, most of the
old-fashioned members fought strenuously against them. The introduction
of the electric light, for instance, was bitterly opposed; whilst the
telephone seemed to not a few of the older generation an attempt to
introduce mercantile outposts into the very heart of clubland. The old
club-men at first hated, and afterwards feared, the encroachments of
business methods into their kingdom. In the heyday of their sway,
indeed, few connected with commerce or the City had much chance of being
elected to a West End club, and it was only in the seventies of the last
century that a few determined scouts contrived to force an entry into
the portals through which the vast army of stockbrokers and the like
have since surged. At heart the old club-men probably believed that it
was undignified for a gentleman to enter any but certain recognized
professions, such as the army, navy, or diplomatic service; and the West
End was still permeated by the ideas of another age which had only just
passed away.
Gradually, as a new and entirely different generation came to the front,
the aristocratic traditions which had dominated West End life were
discarded, and another kind of club-man began to make his influence
felt.
Members of energetic temperament found the atmosphere of idle lassitude
which hung about some West End clubs so stifling that a number of them,
filled with a desire for exercise, formed what they called a “walking
society.” One of their favourite excursions was to St. Albans, which
they called their halfway house, and to this town they walked backwards
and forwards to dinner every Thursday.
Now that the old-fashioned club-man has disappeared, a glance at his
ways may not be out of place. Generally a bachelor of the most confirmed
kind, his whole life centred in his club, to which he made it a habit to
go every day at the same hour, and when possible occupy the same chair,
which in course of time was accorded to him as a sort of right.
Often an old-fashioned beau, he was as a rule rather a hard, selfish
man, provided by his club with all that he required. Not a few men of
this type declined to dine out, because they said they got a better
dinner at the club for some ten or twelve shillings than at the best
houses in town. “Why,” inquired one of them, “should I bore myself with
dull society when I can have the comfortable ease of the smoking-room?
If I want to be amused, I go to the theatre; if I want to read, I go to
the library. What have I to do with society,” he would ask, with a
sneer—“I who have no money, and not even a pretty wife?” Such an
individual was perfectly content with existence. Quiet, comfort, good
living, freedom from responsibility and anxiety, were the great objects
of his life, “and, begad, you don’t get that by marriage,” he would
remark.
The confirmed club-man of to-day is, perhaps, a shade less cynical, but
a variation of the old type still exists, and in most West End clubs,
especially those of an old-fashioned sort, there is to be found some
member who is generally recognized as an institution of the place.
Such a man is not infrequently the terror of the club servants, upon
whom he is ever ready to pounce when there arises the least cause for
complaint. He backs his bill remorselessly if the dish which is down for
eight o’clock appears a quarter of an hour late, or if the wine-butler
makes a mistake about the vintage that is ordered, or the waiter at his
table is not perfect in his duties. He knows to a day when everything is
in season, and woe betide the steward if at the earliest moment there is
no caviare, sufficient supply of plovers’ eggs, asparagus, green peas,
or new potatoes. He can tell the exact price of most things, and
instantly checks any attempt on the part of the club to overcharge. He
is the great authority on club discipline and club etiquette. Matters
outside the club, however, he views with more or less indifference. Talk
to him of some awful disaster, of some terrible commercial failure,
provided he be not affected by it, of some great national loss, of the
death of some great man, and his interest will hardly be excited; but
tell him that an excellent club cook has given notice, or that there has
been a “row” between certain members on a difference of opinion in the
committee, and you will at once find him an interested and attentive
listener.
His daily life is regulated by habits which have gradually crystallized
into an almost undeviating monotony.
He likes to read the same newspaper in the same chair in the same place,
to write his letters at the same table, to lunch at the same time, and
to have his dinner served by the same waiter at the same hour in the
same corner of the coffee-room. In such matters he is the strictest and
most staunch of Conservatives. Never was there a man whom it is more
easy to find, for one knows the hour to a moment when he takes his daily
stroll, when he smokes his first cigar, when he lunches, dines, writes
his letters, reads, and goes through the programme of his thoroughly
selfish but not uncomfortable life. He cares little for society, and,
with the exception of running down for an occasional visit to some
country-house (where he is certain of the cook), or going to the Riviera
for a fortnight, seldom leaves town. The club is his home, and at heart
he dislikes leaving its walls. Unlike the old-fashioned club-man,
however, he is not unaffable to new members or strangers, and is fully
alive to the increased comfort to be obtained from any modern
improvement.
The confirmed frequenter of clubs knows everything that is going on, and
imparts such information as he feels inclined to give with none of the
mystery and importance of semi-ignorance, but simply and naturally. He
knows what young women are going to the altar, and what young men are
going to the dogs; what people have been prevented from going to Court,
and what spendthrifts are about to be forced to go through another. He
is well acquainted with the latest good stories about town, and explains
mysterious floating gossip as to meditated divorces or hushed-up
scandals. As a matter of fact, his conversation is generally amusing,
and occasionally instructive.
The life of such a man, as has been said, is centred in his club, and he
sees members come and go, hears of their prosperity or ruin, marriages
or deaths, with imperturbable equanimity; indeed, it would require an
invasion or an earthquake to make him effect any change in his habits.
So he lunches and dines, dines and lunches, till the sands of the
hourglass have run out, and the moment comes for him to enter that great
club of which all humanity must perforce become members.
A few questions will be asked in the club as to his end, his fortune or
lack of fortune; his witticisms will linger for a while, and his good or
bad points be discussed; but in a year or so he will become as
completely forgotten as if he had never been.
As London clubs began to multiply, their gradual increase drew away most
of the sporting men from the old hostelries which at one time it had
been the fashion to frequent. Theodore Hook alluded to this in some
humorous lines:
“If any man loves comfort, and has little cash to buy it, he
Should get into a crowded club—a most select society;
While solitude and mutton cutlets serve _infelix uxor_, he
May have his club (like Hercules), and revel there in luxury.
“Yes, clubs knock houses on the head; e’en Hatchett’s can’t demolish
them;
Joy grieves to see their magnitude, and Long longs to abolish them.
The inns are out; hotels for single men scarce can keep alive on it;
While none but houses that are in the family way thrive on it.”
Since those days clubs have multiplied enormously; indeed, almost every
profession, every pastime, and every point of view has its club. Whilst
most of these institutions are frankly mundane in their aims, a few are
very solemn in tone. At one club, for instance, morning and evening
prayers are read every day. The club in question was founded for men of
very Evangelical views, some of whom, it was wickedly said, were so
devout as to demand that a club rule should be passed prohibiting
members from entering the coffee-room unless in a “state of grace.” Of
late years, however, a less severe tone has prevailed amongst its
members, many of whom are distinguished men.
Sixty years ago the fact of club membership implied some social position
or distinction on the part of the individual. White’s, Brooks’s,
Boodle’s, Arthur’s, and a few other establishments, constituted really
exclusive clubland, and to be elected to them was a matter of no little
difficulty. A man of obscure birth, or one unknown to the committee,
would have been sure of being blackballed. Clubs were then filled by
those who belonged either to the same political party or the same
fashionable coterie, the members of which were all more or less known to
each other. The Tory patrician belonged to White’s; the Whig politician
of old family was a member of Brooks’s; the country gentleman put his
name down at Boodle’s or Arthur’s; the distinguished lawyer, divine, or
man of letters, became a member of the Athenæum; and the soldier, who
was a field officer, of the United Service. The membership of such clubs
constituted an exclusive circle.
A club was a place in which men wrote letters and met their friends.
Beyond being a comfortable lounge, it was of little service to its
members.
Many tacitly recognized conventions prevailed in connection with
club-life. For instance, it was not then at all the thing to raise one’s
hat to a lady whom one knew, should she pass the club window. A great
many members lunched in the coffee-room with their hats on, whilst in
certain clubs evening dress at dinner was obligatory. Some clubs,
including Boodle’s, even to-day set aside a small apartment, separate
from the regular dining-room, for members who prefer to dine in day
clothes.
Formerly, it should be added, hats were far more generally worn in clubs
than is now the case. In some it was the traditional custom to wear them
at all times and in all parts of the house. At the old “Rag,” the
practice was said to have survived from the time when the club-house was
so cheerless and the funds so limited that the management economized
coals, for which reason the members were at great pains to keep
themselves warm.
In his own club a man used to be considered as having entirely cut
himself off from communication with the outside world, and acknowledging
people from the windows by a bow or nod was then quite contrary to club
usage, which prescribed an Olympian stare.
At certain of the older clubs a few customs, dating back to the
eighteenth century, were up to quite recently still in vogue.
At Arthur’s, Boodle’s, White’s,[5] and, I think, Brooks’s, for instance,
change was given in washed silver. The money was first plunged in hot
water and cleaned, after which it was placed in a wash-leather bag; this
was whirled round in the air at the end of a short cord till all the
coins contained in it were dry.
Footnote 5:
The water from the old well in the courtyard here was supposed to be
particularly excellent and healthy, and many members made a daily
practice of drinking a glass of it.
The custom of giving washed silver lasted latest at Arthur’s, where it
was only abandoned a few years ago. It seems a pity that such a cleanly
and hygienic custom should have fallen into disuse.
Another old custom was the house dinner, where members dined together.
At White’s and Boodle’s this function used to be a great feature—highly
appreciated by some of the older, more stingy, or impecunious members.
Immemorial custom prescribed that the first four members who put their
names down as diners should have dinner “free of cost,” and a certain
gang of old gentlemen used to make a regular practice of being in these
club-houses in good time to inscribe their names.
Wine, of course, had to be paid for, but the most economical contented
themselves with table-beer. There was great consternation amongst the
“fraternity of free feeders” when, during the early seventies of the
last century, these house dinners were abolished.
Some few clubs still retain the snuff-box which once figured on the
mantelpiece of every club. In most, however, it has disappeared.
Snuff-taking has become obsolete since the triumph of the
cigarette—perhaps a more pernicious habit.
The question of smoking has frequently caused great agitation in London
clubs. In 1866, for instance, White’s, where cigars had not been allowed
at all till 1845, was much perturbed concerning tobacco, some of the
younger members wishing to be allowed to smoke in the drawing-room,
whilst the older ones bitterly opposed such a proposal. A general
meeting was held to decide the question, when a number of old gentlemen
who had not been seen in the club for years made their appearance,
stoutly determined to resist the proposed desecration. “Where do all
these old fossils come from?” inquired a member. “From Kensal Green,”
was Mr. Alfred Montgomery’s reply. “Their hearses, I understand, are
waiting to take them back there.”
The non-smoking party triumphed, and as an indirect result was founded
the Marlborough Club, where, for the first time in the history of West
End Clubland, smoking, except in the dining-room, was everywhere
allowed.
As a matter of fact, the restrictions as to smoking which still prevail
in a number of old-fashioned clubs are for the most part out of date and
absurd. At the present time people smoke in ladies’ boudoirs, and almost
invariably in dining-rooms after dinner. The great restaurants, a large
portion of whose clientèle consists of refined ladies, permit smoking
everywhere.
Nevertheless, in a number of club morning-rooms, libraries, and
sitting-rooms, the resort for the most part of a number of middle-aged
men, often of a somewhat derelict-looking type, tobacco is entirely
banned.
The whole thing is merely a perpetuation of an out-of-date prejudice.
The regulations against smoking which prevail in different clubs clearly
demonstrate the small foundation of reason which underlies such
restrictions.
The Carlton allows smoking in its library; the Junior Carlton does not.
The Conservative Club, on the other hand, has an excellent rule which
permits members to smoke in the morning-room after a certain hour in the
morning.
Regulations against smoking in libraries are particularly senseless, as
tobacco smoke can have nothing but a beneficial effect upon books, which
it has a tendency to preserve.
In old days clubs did not welcome strangers; indeed, it was said that if
anyone not a member should fall down in a fit at the door of one or two
of the more exclusive clubs, he would be denied even a glass of water. A
few clubs allowed visitors, but took care to extend only a cold welcome
to them. As a matter of fact, they were usually treated like the
members’ dogs—they might be left in the hall under proper restraint, but
access to any other part of the house, except, perhaps, some cheerless
apartment kept as a strangers’ dining-room, was forbidden. Of late
years, however, all this has been changed except in a very few clubs,
such as the Guards’, which positively forbids any strangers to enter its
doors. Only very recently has Arthur’s admitted strangers to dine. The
Carlton allows guests only to pass its threshold, but not to go beyond
the great hall, and the Athenæum allots them a small room near the
entrance, where members may interview their friends. The latter club
also allows a member to give a formal dinner-party in the morning-room,
converted for the time being into a house dining-room, and here as many
as ten guests may be hospitably welcomed. The Travellers’ permits
strangers to dine, except during the Parliamentary season, whilst the
Oxford and Cambridge Club allows six members to entertain two guests
apiece. The Garrick is far more liberal, for here a member may introduce
three friends to the strangers’ coffee-room for dinner, or two for
luncheon or supper. Members of this club may also give luncheon-parties
to ladies on one day of the week.
As regards the admission of ladies to clubs, it is very doubtful if,
according to the strict letter of the law, ladies can be excluded from
any institution of this sort which admits strangers, for there is no
mention of sex in any book of club rules. Indeed, a member of a certain
military club is said once to have brought his wife to dine, and defied
the authorities by asking for the book of the rules, in which he
triumphantly pointed out that there was no stipulation as to sex.
Not a few clubs in old days were anything but sociable places for young
men, who, when elected, were often shy at frequenting them, on account
of the stern looks which certain of the older members, who had their
particular corners and chairs, were wont to cast at them. Gloomy abodes
of misanthropic selfishness some of these clubs seem to have been, where
sociability and conversation were at a considerable discount.
Dr. Johnson was probably the most staunch defender of clubs who ever
lived; his reply to someone who was rather inclined to decry such
institutions is historic. A gentleman venturing one day to say to the
learned Doctor that he sometimes wondered at his condescending to attend
a club, the latter replied: “Sir, the great chair of a full and pleasant
town club is, perhaps, the throne of human felicity.”
His, of course, was the day of literary clubs, more suited to the spirit
of the eighteenth century than to that of to-day. In modern times most
of the literary clubs founded for conversation have been complete
failures. So much talking, and nothing said! Everyone failing, because
everyone is attempting; in a word, nothing of the club feeling, which
demands the postponement of our petty selfloves to the general
gratification, and strikes only in unison with the feelings and
sentiments of all!
A good deal of wine was generally consumed during the symposiums which
the great talkers of the past loved. At one meeting-place where a
literary club was wont to meet, the landlord was said to keep a special
kind of port expressly for such parties, which those who frequented the
house christened “the philosopher’s port.” A cynic declared that in one
respect it certainly merited its name, for a good deal of philosophy was
necessary to swallow it.
Thackeray, unlike Dr. Johnson, was rather inclined to disparage clubs.
Speaking of the town life of a past age, he said: “All that fuddling and
boozing shortened the lives and enlarged the waistcoats of the men of
that age. They spent many hours of the four-and-twenty, nearly a fourth
part of each day, in clubs and coffee-houses, where they dined, drank,
and smoked. Wit and news went by word of mouth; a journal of 1710
contained the very smallest portion of either the one or the other. The
chiefs spoke; the faithful habitués sat around; strangers came to wonder
and to listen.... The male society passed over their punch-bowls and
tobacco-pipes almost as much time as ladies of that age spent over
spadille and manille.”
Tom Hood expressed an equally unfavourable view in 1838:
“One selfish course the Wretches keep;
They come at morning chimes;
To snatch a few short hours of sleep—
Rise—breakfast—read the _Times_—
Then take their hats, and post away,
Like Clerks or City scrubs,
And no one sees them all the day—
They live, eat, drink, at Clubs!”
Many women regarded such places as dens of iniquity. “I believe that
mine will be the fate of Abel,” said a devoted wife to her husband one
day. “How so?” inquired the husband. “Because Abel was killed by a club,
and your club will kill me if you continue to go to it every night.”
Dr. Johnson defined a club as “an assembly of uncertain fellows meeting
amidst comfortable surroundings,” and in the earliest days, when the
club was developing out of the coffee-house as a social institution, its
chief attraction lay in the wit of its members and the similarity of
their tastes and opinions. Members then were contented with a
comparatively simple standard of comfort, and esteemed congenial
companionship the best furniture a club could possess; but with the
lapse of years a different spirit began to prevail. In the luxurious
palaces of to-day most of the members are very often unknown to one
another; such places are, in reality, rather luxurious restaurants and
hotels than clubs.
Many clubs now have bedrooms for the use of members; in a few instances
these are let by the year. Such a convenience is highly appreciated, for
to a bachelor the advantages of living in a club are very great. Here he
may have all the comforts of a private house without its worries, in
addition to which every species of modern convenience is at his command.
Latterly a good deal of attention has been devoted to the decoration of
club-houses generally, most of which now contain prints and pictures.
The present being a more or less luxurious age, modern club-men require
more pleasing surroundings than their forbears, who asked little beyond
comfortable chairs and blazing fires.
Until comparatively recent years, the interior of the great majority of
West End clubs was somewhat bare, such attempts at decoration as existed
being for the most part confined to feeble designs in stencil, whilst
pictures and prints were either few in number or did not exist at all.
The furniture was generally of mid-Victorian date—comfortable, though
rather heavy in design.
At a certain number of clubs, wax candles were placed upon the
dining-tables, and these were very necessary in the days when oil-lamps
and gas were the best illuminants procurable. The light of the lamps was
not unpleasant, but in some of the rooms lit by gas the heat was often
perfectly intolerable.
As an instance of the persistence of club tradition, it may be added
that even at the present time, when electricity floods most of the
coffee-rooms with light, some clubs still retain the candles which were
so useful in the past.
The growth of the club system undoubtedly effected a great revolution in
the domestic life of men generally, and especially in that of the
younger ones. Married men, accustomed to the refinement and luxury of a
club, gradually imported many amenities into their homes, and
endeavoured, so far as their means permitted, to reproduce some of the
perfections of management as it is found in clubs.
It was, however, in the life of the bachelor that the introduction of
this state of affairs caused the greatest change. The solitary lodgings
and the tavern dinners were relegated to the limbo of the past. All he
now needed was a bedroom, for the club provided him with the rest of his
wants. It began to matter little in what dingy street or squalid quarter
a man lodged, for the club was his address, and society inquired no
further. He did not need to purchase an envelope or a sheet of notepaper
throughout the year, for the club provided him with all the stationery
he could possibly require. There was no longer any occasion for him to
buy a book, a magazine, or newspaper, for in his club he would find a
library such as few private houses could furnish, and in the
morning-room every newspaper and weekly review that had a respectable
circulation.
Here was to be found economy without privation for the man of modest
means and small wants, whilst in some clubs even a confirmed sybarite
could satisfy his tastes.
The excessively moderate scale of expenditure for which a man can live
comfortably at many a club is highly attractive to the parsimonious.
A certain member, as well known for his economical way as for his vast
wealth, made a study of living at the smallest possible cost in the
several clubs to which he belonged. It was, for instance, his habit to
take full advantage of the privileges to be obtained in return for
table-money, and when he dined the table would be covered with
pickle-bottles and other things included in such a charge. One evening a
fellow-member, noticing this, inquired of the steward the reason why
such an array had been collected. “It’s for a member, sir,” was the
reply, “who likes profusion.”
The lover of profusion was especially noticeable on account of his
unpolished boots, which stupid servants, as he said, were always wanting
to wear out by blacking.
A member of several clubs, he once discovered, amongst the rules of a
certain old-established one, an ancient and unrepealed rule which laid
down that slices of cold ham were to be provided free for any members at
their lunch. In high glee, he determined to profit by this, and before
long the attention of the committee was called to the quick
disappearance of ham after ham, which for a time had furnished a series
of Gargantuan meals. The rule, of course, was at once abolished, and the
parsimonious member betook himself elsewhere.
Very different in his habits was a witty old gourmet who was always
urging the steward to procure luxuries in and out of season. He was
especially fond of pâté de foie gras, and made that official promise to
get a fine one from Strasbourg. This, however, was a long time in making
its appearance; and after waiting a week or so, the lover of good things
became impatient at the delay. Taking the man to task, he reminded him
that delays are dangerous, to which the steward replied that he heard
pâtés were not good that year. “Nonsense,” was the rejoinder, “we will
soon put that right. Depend upon it, it is only a false report that has
been circulated by some geese.”
The same member once had reason for much comical complaint in connection
with a pâté which, in this case, had been sent him as a present by a
noted connoisseur. Several members of the committee were invited to
partake of the delicacy, and they were all agreed as to its peculiar
excellence; as one of them facetiously said, it made one realize that
the problem, “Is life worth living?” was, after all, merely “a question
de foi(e).” A few days later, however, what was the surprise of the
giver of the feast to receive a reprimand from the committee, calling
his attention to the rule which forbade members to bring food into the
club!
“Ah,” said he, “if I had only told them I was expecting more pâtés, they
would have left me alone; mine was too small, and probably they were
annoyed at not having had a second go at it.”
Though good-natured and hospitable, this lover of good living was very
touchy upon certain gastronomic matters. He did not speak to a friend of
his for years owing to the latter’s contention that carrots should
always be put in a _navarin_—a statement which, the old gourmet
declared, placed anyone making it outside the ranks of civilized man.
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