conversation, we liked
listening to him, his jokes were good. With those twelve sausage-rolls
I could have dominated my fellows for a while. But I had not a dominant
nature. I never trusted myself as a leader. Leading abashed me. I was
happiest in the comity of the crowd. Having received a hamper, I was
always glad when it was finished, glad to fall back into the ranks.
Humility is a virtue, and it is a virtue innate in guests.

Boys (as will have been surmised from my record of the effect of
hampers) are all of them potential guests. It is only as they grow up
that some of them harden into hosts. It is likely enough that if I, when
I grew up, had been rich, my natural bent to guestship would have been
diverted, and I too have become a (sort of) host. And perhaps I should
have passed muster. I suppose I did pass muster whenever, in the course
of my long residence in London, I did entertain friends. But the memory
of those occasions is not dear to me--especially not the memory of those
that were in the more distinguished restaurants. Somewhere in the back
of my brain, while I tried to lead the conversation brightly, was always
the haunting fear that I had not brought enough money in my pocket. I
never let this fear master me. I never said to any one 'Will you have a
liqueur?'--always 'What liqueur will you have?' But I postponed as far
as possible the evil moment of asking for the bill. When I had, in
the proper casual tone (I hope and believe), at length asked for it, I
wished always it were not brought to me folded on a plate, as though the
amount were so hideously high that I alone must be privy to it. So soon
as it was laid beside me, I wanted to know the worst at once. But I
pretended to be so occupied in talk that I was unaware of the bill's
presence; and I was careful to be always in the middle of a sentence
when I raised the upper fold and took my not (I hope) frozen glance.
In point of fact, the amount was always much less than I had feared.
Pessimism does win us great happy moments.

Meals in the restaurants of Soho tested less severely the pauper guest
masquerading as host. But to them one could not ask rich persons--nor
even poor persons unless one knew them very well. Soho is so uncertain
that the fare is often not good enough to be palmed off on even one's
poorest and oldest friends. A very magnetic host, with a great gift for
bluffing, might, no doubt, even in Soho's worst moments, diffuse among
his guest