x, quite an
unexpected taste for Botticelli. They ill conceal their envy of my lot,
and sometimes, in the meditative pauses between the courses, I see them
romantically reckoning how it might be possible by desperately saving
up, by prodigious windfalls of tips, from unexampled despatch and
sweetness in their ministrations, how it might be possible in ten years'
time, perhaps even in five--the lady would wait five years! and her
present lover could be artistically poisoned meanwhile!--how it might be
possible to come and sue for her beautiful hand. Then a harsh British
cry for 'waiter' comes like a rattle and scares away that beautiful
dream-bird, though, as the poor dreamer speeds on the quest of roast
beef for four, you can see it still circling with its wonderful blue
feathers around his pomatumed head.

Ah, yes, the waiters know that the Sphinx is no ordinary woman. She
cannot conceal even from them the mystical star of her face, they too
catch far echoes of the strange music of her brain, they too grow
dreamy with dropped hints of fragrance from the rose of her wonderful
heart.

How reverently do they help her doff her little cloak of silk and lace!
with what a worshipful inclination of the head, as in the presence of a
deity, do they await her verdict of choice between rival soups--shall it
be 'clear or thick'? And when she decides on 'thick,' how relieved they
seem to be, as if--well, some few matters remain undecided in the
universe, but never mind, this is settled for ever--no more doubts
possible on one portentous issue, at any rate--Madame will take her soup
'thick.'

'On such a night' our talk fell upon whitebait.

As the Sphinx's silver fork rustled among the withered silver upon her
plate, she turned to me and said:

'Have you ever thought what beautiful little things these whitebait
are?'

'Oh, yes,' I replied, 'they are the daisies of the deep sea, the
threepenny-pieces of the ocean.'

'You dear!' said the Sphinx, who is alone in the world in thinking me
awfully clever. 'Go on, say something else, something pretty about
whitebait--there's a subject for you!'

Then it was that, fortunately, I remembered my Pre-Raphaelite friend,
and I sententiously remarked: 'Of course, if one has anything to say one
cannot do better than say it about whitebait.... Well, whitebait....'

But here, providentially, the band of the beef--that is, the band behind
the beef; that is, the band that nightly hymns the b