And not only does one inaugurate business matters at lunch, but
one also renews old friendships. Who has not had said to him in
the Strand, "Hallo, old fellow, I haven't seen you for ages; you
must come and lunch with me one day"? And who has not answered,
"Rather! I should love to," and passed on with a glow at the
heart which has not died out until the next day, when the
incident is forgotten? An invitation to dinner is formal, to tea
unnecessary, to breakfast impossible, but there is a casualness,
very friendly and pleasant, about invitations to lunch which make
them complete in themselves, and in no way dependent on any lunch
which may or may not follow.
Without having exhausted the subject of lunch in London (and I
should like to say that it is now certain that I shall not have
time to partake to-day), let us consider for a moment lunch in
the country. I do not mean lunch in the open air, for it is
obvious that there is no meal so heavenly as lunch thus eaten,
and in a short article like this I have no time in which to dwell
upon the obvious. I mean lunch at a country house. Now, the most
pleasant feature of lunch at a country house is this--that you
may sit next to whomsoever you please. At dinner she may be
entrusted to quite the wrong man; at breakfast you are faced with
the problem of being neither too early for her nor yet too late
for a seat beside her; at tea people have a habit of taking your
chair at the moment when a simple act of courtesy has drawn you
from it in search of bread and butter; but at lunch you follow
her in and there you are--fixed.
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