urse followed course, each on a different colored plate. If the dinner
was intended for an exhibition of crockery, each one of the seven I had
there was a success, but, however gratifying to the eye the dinners
might be, they were lamentable failures so far as stomach and appetite
were concerned; but when I came to pay my bill I found the white kid
gloves and the fancy china again; they were all in it, and many more
things as well. The bill was more than a foot long, filled with such
items as soap, sixpence; one envelope, one penny; one sheet note paper,
one penny; bath, two shillings; extra towels and soap for same,
sixpence, and so on through the line.

We found the Grosvenor another Gresham. However, as we wanted to stop at
a swell hotel, we concluded--so long as we were there--to remain; but
after a few days we found the cuisine "highly respectable;" that is, for
dinner one could get roast--either beef or mutton. As for vegetables, we
were strictly limited to turnips, cauliflowers, cabbage and potatoes,
and, for dessert, the famous apple tart of England, more deadly even
than our mince pie.

[Illustration: SOME NATIVES I MET IN TAWNY, SPAIN.--Page 290.]

The proprietor of a certain popular restaurant in New York has a fad for
hanging elaborately got-up Scripture texts--exhortations mostly--around
the walls of his restaurant. Interspersed with these are advertisements
of his eatables--also exhortations--such as, "Try our buckwheat cakes,
10 cents;" "Try our doughnuts and coffee;" between the two exhortations,
a third bidding one flee from the wrath to come; but the most fetching
of all are two companion cards. On the one is the legend, "Try our hot
mince pie;" on the other is displayed the apropos warning, "Prepare to
meet thy God."

So we resolved to sleep at the Grosvenor, but to avoid the apple tart.
We soon discovered a good restaurant near by, where we dined, and, as I
am on the subject of dining, I will finish this chapter with a little
narrative, the moral of which I will leave my readers to find: We were
now settled down in London, prepared to devote all our attention to that
Old Lady--The B. of E.--and, in accordance with a habit of ours, we
began to look for some safe place--hotel, cafe or restaurant--where we
could meet, run in at any time for consultation, or to write notes.
Three things were requisite--nearness to the money centre of the city, a
room where we could be secluded from people coming and g