it quick, is a contradiction in terms at a French eating-house.

And this reminds me of the fundamental distinction between the frequenters of luncheon bars. There are those, according to the classical proverb, who live to eat, and those who eat to live. There are some persons who enter a luncheon bar with a knowingness and a deliberation which indicate that they are about to lay out the limited space of time available for the luncheon bar to the greatest possible advantage. They select the best bar, and at the best bar (they select the best things. With a cool, critical eye they run down the bill of fare, and with instinctive judgment make a selection which reflects credit on their taste. But if a man is exceedingly busy, or very much occupied in mind, he has no time for this. He has perhaps stayed at his post until faintness, or the gnawing tooth of hunger, has absolutely driven him from his work to the luncheon bar; and thus he has a wandering eye and a preoccupied air. He has not the slightest idea what he is eating, whether roast or boiled, joint or entrée. He satisfies a brute, canine instinct, and retires. Such a man has been known to come to a luncheon bar with a pen behind his ear. Such a one always brings a note-book, some memoranda, or a pocketful of letters with him. Such a one has a business friend with him; and they will continue their discussion or negotiation in the brief allotment of time apportioned to refection. They are probably lean, unwholesome-looking men, with bodily disorganization of some sort setting in, chiefly because they bolt their food whole, and allow no time for digestion. I know of an invalid of this sort, who, in solemn repentance for his ill-advised alacrity in feeding, has stuck up all over his house inscriptions in large letters'Masticate, masticate, masticate!' A judicious man, who knows that he has a great deal of important work to do, and wishes to do it in a high state of bodily efficiency, generally confines himself to a mutton chop and a glass of sherry, which he transacts leisurely. If there is head

work, really requiring attention, a man is very careful in his diet. You cannot be loading two great organs with work at the same time without impeding and impairing their action. This is a most elementary physiological truth. The other day I saw one of our most distinguished writers take his lunch at a luncheon bar which some of us know, in the immediate vicinity of the British Museum. It consisted of a cold sausage and a hot potato. A glass of beer was ordered for the good of the house, but, I believe, not drunk. That was perhaps as heavy a lunch as he dared venture with important work on hand in the great reading

room.

Then there are City luncheon places with specialities. Birch's in Cornhill is such a place. Birch has a speciality, and that speciality is soup. You can go to Birch's and get turtle soup-calipash and calipee-four shillings a plate. You sometimes find people coming from the West Indies who are satiated with turtle-turtle chops, and turtle soup, and yet this simple necessity of life is considerably removed from the reach of ordinary Londoners. At Birch's they will give you pastry and patties, but the theory of the institution is manifestly turtle soup, with some sound sherry to carry out the idea. You will find the rooms filled, three stories of them, with soup-devouring human beings; and in the late cold wintry weather hot soup really appeared to be the best thing which you could devour. Ladies abound here-not curtained off into a separate domain of their own and an escort not de rigueurbut diffusing a charm and an aroma over the apartment. Comfortable and spacious are these ladies, by-the-way, with an appearance suggestive of extreme solvency on the part of themselves or their male belongings. I am persuaded that directly an old lady has received her dividend at the Bank she crosses the road and gets a basin of turtle soup at Birch's. 'Pimm's,' as we used to call it, is also a well-known luncheon place; it belongs to Mr. Sawyer now-the old oyster shop in which the City men, going down

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to their suburban homes in the evening, especially from the Saturday to the Monday, will pick out some of the finest and reddest lobsters cr give their orders for a barrel of oysters. Here we used to partake plentifully of that delicate mollusk, but, alas! only daintily and sparingly now, at their well-nigh prohibitive prices. Now that oysters are so dear I should not be surprised if the British public made a direct set in the direction of periwinkles. talked once with an enlightened fishmonger who told me that he always gave his children carte blanche among the periwinkles, inasmuch as they were so peculiarly wholesome. Mr. Sawyer has had a large handsome luncheon bar opened next to the fish shop, which fills remarkably well. You have to stand, but you are served with the most commendable quickness, and depart speedily, and you have something moderate to pay. I have heard it asserted that every human being is like some animal.

You

become convinced of the truths of the assertion when you are standing at a large London luncheon bar. You see monkeyfied men, doggified men, equine, and even, I am afraid, asinine men, all busy in the great animal function of taking in provender. The most dignified beings of the human race would, however, suffer some loss of dignity when they take their lunch, as the children of Israel took their last taste of the fleshpots of Egypt, standing and with their loins girded. Pimm's, however, is entitled to the merit of presenting a considerable variety of comestibles. I entertain a strong opinion that as a man of average life spends many months in the operation of dining, it is worth his while to do so as gracefully and with as much taste as he can. Now at Pimm's they certainly give you a considerable variety. And if there are times in which it is prudent to dine off a single dish, I need scarcely say with what anxious solicitude that dish should be selected. On most occasions it is pleasant and agreeable that there should be a variety. Now Pimm will give you lobster dressed, or escal

loped oyster reposing amid bread crumbs in the scallop shell, or some game pie, the British chop, &c. &c,

Several crowded luncheon bars will give you plenty of good things, but would positively decline to accommodate you with a chair, and would look with horror on the intrusion of a newspaper. The reason is obvious enough. Their great rooms stand empty nearly all the day, but will fill to overflowing in the hour or hour and a half to two hours in the middle of the day. Then there is a rush of business, and it is of course an object to obtain as much business as possible. To achieve this desirable object the principle seems to be to make you as comfortable as possible in the inner, and as uncomfortable as possible in the outer man. I know one great luncheon bar where there is a slender ledge behind a table, on which a bird could hardly perch, and yet this is sought as a vantage ground by men who wish to get a slight modicum of rest with their feeding. If you have the leisure look around and try and take count of the people; all sorts, all sizes. I am afraid some of these young dandies are rather going to the bad. They exchange glances, and there was halfintelligible allusions to 'sprees' of the night before. Many there arean increasing number, it appears to me-with bright intelligent pleasant faces, men with whom you would like to shake hands. Then there is, but severer, a man like the old Cheery ble. You may often make a physiognomical study of a face. You soon pick out the lawyers; the parsons-there are not many of them -still signalize themselves at the board. There is a man, who is a 'promoter of companies '-if ever a face wore an expression of grasping selfishness, it is that face: he shows it in his way of feeding, and his history, when you come to hear it, corresponds. There is a great banker; I wonder why he is here rather than in his private room; ditto that brace of clerks from a government office. And so on, most men showing their histories in their countenances, and showing their habits by their manners.

The oyster shops form a set of luncheon bars by themselves; but there is a considerable variety on some of the counters. Pickled salmon and soused mackerel appear to be the favourite delicacies; cold hard-boiled eggs, which, I should think, would be useful, and cold sole, which seems a mysterious taste; lobsters, lobster salad, &c. These bars frequently do not serve drinks, but there is generally an immense display of aërated waters, and the waiter will get you anything you want for your money. I suppose, under such circumstances, there is a friendly sort of arrangement between the luncheon bar and the public house round the corner. It is astonishing what a capacity is occasionally developed for shell fish. A gentleman told me that he would turn in and take a cool lobster, not as a meal nor yet as a part of a meal, but as a mere whet to one's appetite. The proper thing is to take your penny loaf and a pat of butter and consume natives. The Whitstable oysters will take their price, but very good oysters at a very fair price are obtainable in the west country. know that in the bay of Tenbyalways noted for good and cheap fish-one can get oysters at three shillings the long hundred of six score, the retail price. The fish which is sold retail at sixpence a pound is sold wholesale at fourpence a pound. I should think this would be a profit, or say a small advance on this, that would fairly repay the London salesman. It is rather hard that we should have to pay a penny or three halfpence for the oyster that sells for about a farthing-four or six hundred per cent. It would almost be a due punishment to the oyster seller if the great Dando institution were revived. Did you ever hear of Dando? He was the terror of the luncheon bars of his day. A gentleman with an insatiable desire of oysters and imperfect pecuniary means to gratify the taste. This, however, formed no impediment to Dando. His idea of oysters was that of Christopher North-five hundred in their cradles and five hundred with pepper and vinegar.' This was not an outrageous joke of

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Wilson's, but a veritable fact. He could act wondrous things in his day-pour a bottle of whisky into a bowl of milk and drink off the mixture. But to return to Dando. He would have the oysters opened, dozen after dozen, and enjoy them with real gusto. The men would be kept incessantly to the work of opening oysters until that insatiable appetite was, if not satisfied, wearied out. When the reckoning was made, Dando confessed impecuniosity. It might happen that he would be sent to gaol to work out the price that way; but the irrepressible Dando would crop up again. Pleasant and courteous, he would enter some new lunch bar and order a few dozen natives. The direction, pleasant to shopkeepers, to keep on opening till further notice was given. Then suddenly the thought would flash across the mind of the unhappy shopman, Suppose this should be Dando!' The agony of suspense was soon ended by the certainty that that great original was before him, and had, as usual, suspended cash payments.

Yet I confess it is not pleasant to stand at a counter on a rough winter day, with a door open or ajar, or, at all events, letting in some current of cold, and perhaps sleet and snow as well. There is generally a coffee-room behind, involving some slight addition to the charge, and the waiter perhaps expects a trifle. And though our insular ugliness has nothing to show that will compare with the déjeuner à la fourchette which you may have for two francs at the Palais Royal, with large, cheerful rooms, sofas, and gilded mirrors, and an outlook on a broad, planted space, where perhaps a fine military band is playing, still you may eat at your leisure, like a gentleman, instead of being fed at a sort of trough, like an animal-take a glance at the Times,' 'trifle with the cruet,' be tolerably warm and comfortable, and in some sensible places you can also obtain spiced ale or mulled claret. And this reminds me that there are some luncheon bars where the bar is every thing and the luncheon nothing. You see the announcement that it is a luncheon

bar. You enter. Drink is going on everywhere, and there is no food except hard biscuits and fossilized sandwiches. There are better places, where they profess to give you drink, inasmuch as their fluid is a speciality, but still they will condescend to your weakness if you are really hungry and would like to have a little lunch. Such is Piodéla's, in the Strand, where they sell you Spanish wines, genuine and good, iced in summer and mulled in winter. Such are the new shops which they have opened for the lager beer, in some of which you have good German cookery, where do not forget the herring-salad. It is a curious fact that the places which do a supper trade do not fall into the way of a lunch business. One o'clock at night harmonizes ill with one o'clock in the morning. They will try and make you as comfortable as possible, be civil and obliging, and all that; but the attendants are tired, the room is tawdry, the atmosphere is still overcharged. I went the other day to a place to lunch where I had had supper some fifteen years before. How quaint and ghostly those empty boxes looked, where, in those old days, with merry friends, scattered and gone, in a blaze of light and amid a gauzy crowd, we went in heartily for the wholesome oysters at sixpence a dozen. I left the bar and talked with a venerable waiter. Things were not now as they once were, he said. They closed early. The night customers became few. People didn't come there as they once did. But I noticed that there was a good deal of legitimate business going on, and perhaps the waiter, upon reconsideration, may take a more favourable view of things.

Eating our way on, we should say that the legal luncheons are of a highly satisfactory nature. The gentlemen of the long robe have always exercised great discrimination, and have been justly remarkable for eating the oyster while dispensing the shells to their clients. They have a capital luncheon bar near the river at the bottom of the Temple. I forget the name at the

moment, but it is strictly a luncheon place, and they give you dishes in the French style very neatly. Close by you have those now historic hostels, the Cock, the Rainbow, and the London, and lower down the Cheshire Cheese. Tennyson has immortalized the Cock. A friend of mine has observed Tennyson, Thackeray, and Dickens all taking their chops in that low room with the sanded floor. N.B.-The stout is good here. I must mention with regret that at the 'London' one day a red mullet was not properly cooked, the liver and 'trail' having been lost in the process. I trust I shall never have to speak of such a matter again. Perhaps it was under the Short Company' management.

The West End luncheon bars have, I think, made a considerable improvement of late years. They cannot indeed cook a mutton-chop or a beefsteak. That interesting branch of the fine arts has never flourished west of Temple Bar. But they can do most other things very well. You can take ladies with you to Verey's, in Regent Street, and they will stop in their carriages and do their own very satisfactory luncheons in Oxford Street and elsewhere. I think Spiers and Pond deserve well of the community for the good luncheon purposes to which they have applied their Australian experiences. But you always lunch in a hurry at a buffet, expecting the whistle of your train. The Regent Street luncheon bars are extremely good. They now only give dinners at the Scottish Stores in Beak Street; but at the corner of Burlington Street the Messrs. Blanchard have one of the best possible luncheon bars. You stand, indeed, and the place is rather crowded; we hope to see it enlarged. But the system is excellent, the viands good, and you may make any number of observations, if you are so inclined, on life and character. You also get here that variety on which I must insist as essential to a well-planned luncheon bar. In the lower room of the Café Royal you can lunch luxuriously; but their continental system is rather complicated, and it requires

some experience before you can lunch both well and unextravagantly. But the happy union of economy and excellence is what we all profess to aim at. I am sure the luncheon bars will respect the wants of the public, but I wish the public

would respect themselves a little more. We might lunch in a more leisurely and Christianly fashion. Luncheon is substantial and serious, and man, the cooking animal, ought to rise to the dignity of the occasion.

YOU can guess tolerably well what

YOU

Captain Pemberton said when May opened to him her new project. That a daughter of his should go upon the stage was not to be thought of for an instant. Poor they might be; that perhaps he could not help; but he would always remember that he was an officer and a gentleman, and that he had a duty to perform in saving his family from degradation.

Such model sentiments as these were just what might have been expected from the captain's training and turn of thought. He had never lived among people who understood the arts as professions, and who could comprehend the dramatic art as compatible with respectabilityat any rate as far as its female followers were concerned. So when he had put forth what he considered to be the orthodox ideas upon the subject, and expressed them in properly commonplace terms, he was of opinion that he had performed all the duty demanded of him, and might leave results to settle themselves. Such was May's view of the case. But May did not quite know her father, and was especially uninformed as to many experiences of his past life. It so happened that the captain had been a constant playgoer in his youth, and had reverenced the dramatic stars of his time-the Keans and the Kembles, for instance - with great devotion. And it was further a fact that he had, during his earlier experience in the service, taken no small part in amateur performances,

and had been even considered an actor of more than average talents. To the stage indeed he had paid attention in more than one way, and it was not the fault of the dramatic art, if his manners had not been emolliated, and if they retained any naturally savage traits. Among the educated classes in this country, the men who have the least sympathy with dramatic art and artists are to be found perhaps among University dons and military officers commanding home districts who have not seen service abroad. Captain Pemberton was of course not likely to have imbibed academical austerity, and he was saved from the pipeclay view of such matters by his foreign service and the emollient process which he had undergone through his amusements. Hence he was saved also from any brutal excess of anger when May developed her plan in connection with the stage, and contented himself, as we have seen, by simply taking the conventional officer and gentleman' view of the case.

So it was that May did not experience by any means such a shock as she had expected in the reception of her proposal. She did not, you may be sure, forget Mrs. Grandison's two great ideas. The first she was as far as ever from entertaining, in the way of action; but she clung to the second as her sheet anchor-she saw that it held hope. And it was not her fault if she did not, during the next few days, familiarize her father with the idea of herself in the character of an actress. She