Читать книгу Cakes & Ale - Spencer Edward - Страница 35

said to be the oldest tavern in London, and which has been more than once swept and garnished, and reformed altogether, since its establishment during the reign of King Richard II. But they could have known but little about the superior advantages offered by the turtle as a life-sustainer, in those days; whereas at the present day some hundreds of the succulent reptiles die the death on the premises, within a month, in order that city companies, and stockbrokers, and merchants of sorts, and mining millionaires, and bicycle makers, and other estimable people, may dine and lunch.

Then there are the numerous clubs, not forgetting one almost at the very door of “The House,” where the 2000 odd (some of them very odd) members are regaled on the fat of the land in general, and of the turtle in particular, day by day; and that mammoth underground palace the “Palmerston,” where any kind of banquet can be served up at a few minutes’ notice, and where “special Greek dishes” are provided for the gamblers in wheat and other cereals, at the adjacent “Baltic.” There be also other eating-houses, far too numerous to mention, but most of them worth a visit.

A “filling” sort of luncheon is a portion of a