This is so far from being true that I
frequently miss lunch altogether ... the exigencies of the
journalistic profession. To-day, for instance, I shall probably
miss it. No; what I mean is that lunch is the meal which in the
abstract appeals to me most because of its catholicity.
We breakfast and dine at home, or at other people's homes, but we
give ourselves up to London for lunch, and London has provided an
amazing variety for us. We can have six courses and a bottle of
champagne, with a view of the river, or one poached egg and a box
of dominoes, with a view of the skylights; we can sit or we can
stand, and without doubt we could, if we wished, recline in the
Roman fashion; we can spend two hours or five minutes at it; we
can have something different, every day of the week, or cling
permanently (as I know one man to do) to a chop and chips--and
what you do with the chips I have never discovered, for they
combine so little of nourishment with so much of inconvenience
that Nature can never have meant them for provender. Perhaps as
counters. ... But I am wandering from my theme.
There is this of romance about lunch, that one can imagine great
adventures with stockbrokers, actor-managers, publishers, and
other demigods to have had their birth at the luncheon table. If
it is a question of "bulling" margarine or "bearing" boot-polish,
if the name for the new play is still unsettled, if there is some
idea of an American edition--whatever the emergency, the final
word on the subject is always the same, "Come and have lunch with
me, and we'll talk it over"; and when the waiter has taken your
hat and coat, and you have looked diffidently at the menu, and in
reply to your host's question, "What will you drink?" have made
the only possible reply, "Oh, anything that you're drinking"
(thus showing him that you don't insist on a bottle to yourself)-
-THEN you settle down to business, and the history of England is
enlarged by who can say how many pages.
Pages:
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80