On first sitting down, Sir Robert Fowler had talked a little to Lady Marriott and myself, but after the roast beef had been served he never spoke to us, but ate-like an ogre. Never have I seen a man stuff with such avidity. First he had a helping of beef, then Yorkshire pudding and beef again. After the first mouthful he cried out to his host, 'Excellent Scotch beef, my dear Marriott.
Where do you get it and how is it kept so perfectly?'
'Secrets of the prison house,' replied Marriott, smiling. He knew that once the dinner was finished, the Mayor would forget the whole incident. When I turned to eat I found my huge vis-a-vis smacking his lips and hurrying again to his plate, intent on cutting and swallowing huge gobbets of meat while the veins of his forehead stood out like knotted cords and the beads of sweat poured down his great red face!
I looked at Lady Marriott and saw a shrinking in her face corresponding to the disgust I felt. I looked away again to spare her, when suddenly there came a loud unmistakable noise and then an overpowering odour. I stared at the big glutton opposite me, but he had already finished a third plateful of the exquisite Scotch beef and was wiping his forehead in serene unconsciousness of having done anything out of the common. I stole a glance at Lady Marriott; she was as white as a ghost and her first helping of meat still lay untouched upon her plate. The quiet lady avoided my eyes and had evidently made up her mind to endure to the end.
But the atmosphere got worse and worse, the smells stronger and stronger, till I rejoiced every time a servant opened the door, whether to go out or come in.
All the guests were eating as if their lives depended on their appetites and Marriott's butler and four men servants were plainly insufficient to supply the imperious desires of his half dozen guests.
I have never in my life seen men gormandise to be compared with those men.
And the curious thing was that as course followed course their appetite seemed to increase. Certainly the smell got worse and worse, and when the savoury of soft herring roes on toast came on the board, the orgy degenerated into a frenzy.
Another unmistakable explosion and I could not but look again at my hostess. She was as pale as death, and this time her eyes met mine in despairing appeal.
'I'm not very well,' she said in a low tone. 'I don't think I can see it through!'
'Why should you?' I responded, getting up. 'Come upstairs; we'll never be missed!' We got up quietly and left the room and in fact were not missed by anyone. As soon as Lady Marriott breathed the pure air of the hall and stairway she began to revive, while the change taught me how terrible the putrid atmosphere of the dining-room had become. 'That's my first City dinner,' said Lady Marriott, drawing a long breath as we sat down in the drawing-room, 'and I hope devoutly it may be my last. How perfectly awful men can be!'
'So that's Sir Robert Fowler,' I said. 'The best Lord Mayor, the only scholarly Lord Mayor, London has ever had!'
One story about Fowler must be inserted here, though the incident took place some time later. The Honourable Finch-Hatton, a son of Lord Winchelsea, had been returned to Parliament as a Conservative. On one of his first nights in the House of Commons he happened to be sitting beside Fowler, who made a long speech in favour of London government and 'the great institutions of the greatest City in the world.' At the end he said he would not conclude with any proposal till he heard what his opponents had to say in answer to him; he could hardly believe that they had any reasonable reply.
While Fowler was speaking, Finch-Hatton had shown signs of restlessness; towards the end of the speech he had moved some three yards away from the baronet. As soon as Fowler sat down, Finch-Hatton sprang up holding his handkerchief to his nose.
'Mr. Speaker,' he began, and was at once acknowledged by the Speaker, for it was a maiden speech, and as such entitled to precedence by the courteous custom of the House. 'I know why the Right Honourable Member for the City did not conclude his speech with a proposal; the only way to conclude such a speech appropriately would be with a motion!'
And Finch-Hatton sat down amid the wild cheers and laughter of the whole House after making the wittiest maiden speech on record. The success of the mot was so extraordinary that I believe he never again ventured to address the House.
Finch-Hatton had spent half a dozen years as a squatter in Queensland and was said to be the only white man that ever lived who could throw a boomerang as well as a Queensland aborigine. It is certain that no one ever threw a boomerang with such success in the House of Commons, for with one winged word he destroyed the influence of Sir Robert Fowler. As soon as Fowler's name came up afterwards the story of Finch-Hatton's maiden speech was told, too, and wild laughter submerged Fowler's reputation.
But if I have set down these examples of English gluttony and, if you will, of English bestiality, I must also say that in the best English houses you found the best food in the world perfectly served and enjoyed with charming decorum. I often said that the English idea of cooking was the best in the world: it was the aristocratic ideal, the wish to give to every single thing its own peculiar flavour. For example, potatoes are best boiled in their skins; the water should then be drained off and the potatoes allowed to steam a few minutes: then you get a potato at its best. Beef should be roasted before the fire and served lightly cooked; mutton, too, should be roasted, but better done; veal and pork should be well done. Everyone of any position in my time in London knew that grouse lightly roasted and eaten cold with a glass or two of brut champagne made a lunch for the gods.
The French, on the other hand, are usually reputed to be the best gourmets in the world, but I have never eaten a first-rate meal in any French house or restaurant. The French have the democratic idea of cooking and are continually tempted to obliterate all distinctions with a democratic sauce.
They will serve you potatoes in twenty ways, all of them appetizing, but none of them giving the true potato flavour. In fact, you don't know half the time what you're eating in France; it's the sauce you taste! Fancy serving a partridge aux choux: the whole exquisite flavour of the bird lost, swamped, drowned in the pungent taste and odour of the accursed cabbage! Compare this bourgeois mess with the flavour you get of an English partridge roasted before a fire by a cook who knows the value of the jewel he is asked to set; nothing but boiled rice or the heart of a lettuce with olive oil from Nice should ever be served with the dainty morsel. But then there are so few cooks in England, and nearly all who merit the name are French.
As I began this chapter with the story of General Dickson's jovial courtesy and excellent dinner, so I must in justice to London end it with the account of a still more memorable feast enjoyed in Ernest Beckett's (afterwards Lord Grimthorpe's) house in Piccadilly, because it, too, throws light on the consummate savoir faire and kindness which enriches English life and distinguishes it above life in any other country.
I had got to know Beckett pretty well towards the end of 1887. He had heard me tell some of the stories I afterwards published and encouraged me by warm praise. He was always pressing me too to go into the House of Commons. 'You may write wonderfully,' he used to say, 'but you'll never write as well as you talk, for you're at least as good an actor as a story teller.'
One evening Beckett asked me to dinner; Mallock and Professor Dow-den of Dublin University were the only other guests. I knew both men slightly and had read a good deal of both and especially of Mallock, not only his New Republic but all his attacks on socialism in defence of an unrestrained individualism. In spite of his reserved manners and rather slow way of speaking, I had come to feel a genuine esteem for his very considerable abilities. I was glad too to meet Dowden again. His book on Shakespeare I thought piffle; it was all taken from what I had begun to call the Ragbag, the receptacle where the English store all the current ideas about Shakespeare, ideas for the most part completely false and not seldom ridiculously absurd.
Nine out of ten English mediocrities are afflicted with the desire to make this God Shakespeare in their own image, and this inexplicable idolatry of themselves has led them into all manner of incongruous misconceptions.
Naturally I had no idea when we sat down to dine that Beckett had arranged the whole affair just to find out whether my knowledge of Shakespeare was really extraordinary or not. Still less did I imagine that Mallock had offered himself as chief inquisitor, so to speak. Towards the end of dinner Beckett turned the conversation deftly enough to Shakespeare and Mallock remarked that though he had only read him casually, carelessly, 'like all the world, he had yet noticed that some of Shakespeare's finest expressions- 'gems of thought'-were never quoted, indeed, were not even known to most of the professional students.' I nodded my agreement.
'Give us an instance!' cried Beckett.
'Well,' replied Mallock, 'take the phrase, 'frightened out of fear'; could, a truth be more splendidly expressed? An epigram unforgettable!'
