in order to eat or drink in London after
twelve-thirty at night you must be a member of something; and to become
a member of a London supper club is not so easy a matter as one might
imagine. Traitors are forever worming their way into such societies, and
the management exercises typical British discretion in selecting the
devotees for its illegal victualing organisation. The club of which I
speak, and whose circular--a masterpiece of low cunning--lies before me,
has its headquarters on a street so small that in giving the address to
even the most erudite of London geographers it is necessary to mention
two or three larger streets in the neighbourhood.

The object of this club, it seems, is "to cultivate a form of art
previously unknown in England--the Cabaret." A noble and worthy desire!
But in the next paragraph we learn that this aristocratic uplift does
not begin until eleven-thirty P.M.; and by reading further we note the
implication that it ceases at one-thirty A.M., at which hour the
cultivation of this unknown art--the Cabaret--is supplanted by a Gipsy
Orchestra, to say nothing of the International Minstrels. Farther on we
learn that once a month the club gives a dinner to its members, and that
this dinner is followed by a "Recital Evening" in honour of and "if
possible" (Oh, subtlety!) under the direction of Lascelles Abercrombie,
Frank Harris, Arthur Machen, T. Sturge Moore, Ezra Pound and W. B.
Yeats. (Note: Although during the last year I have supper-clubbed
incessantly whilst staying in London, I think, in all justice to the
above-mentioned illustrious men, that it should be stated that not once
have I had the pleasure of being personally directed by any one of
them.)

One evening during the month, so runs the forecast, will be devoted to
John Davidson (I missed that evening); one to Modern Fairy Tales (I
somehow missed that evening also); another to Fabian de Castro and "Old
Gipsy Folk Lore and Dance" (Alas, alas, that I should have missed that
evening, too!). But this loss of culture, so far as I personally was
concerned (and other, too, I opine), was not accompanied by any physical
loss; that is to say, the statement on the manifest that during the
performance there would be available "suppers and every kind of
refreshment" is eminently correct, and veracious almost to the point of
fault. Even when the performance was not given--as seemed always to be
the case--there was no cessation in the kitchen acti