bread, and they bellow and
scream defiance at one another. They draw the attention of the waitress
to the fact that there is no salt on the table; what they seem to be
telling her is that the destinies of France are in the balance, the
enemy is at the gates, and that she must deliver herself as hostage or
suffer dreadful deaths. Everything, in fact, boils, except the soup and
the coffee; and at last, glad to escape, you toss your shilling on the
table and tumble out, followed by a yearning cry of "Une salade--une!"

Even then your entertainment has not ceased with the passing of the
shilling. For there are now numerous coffee-bars in Old Compton Street
where for a penny you may lounge at the counter and get an excellent cup
of black coffee, and listen to the electric piano, splurging its cheap
gaiety on the night, or to the newsmen yelling "_Journaux de Paris_!" or
"_Derniere Heure_!" There are "The Chat Noir," "The Cafe Leon," and "The
Cafe Bar Conte"; also there is "The Suisse," where you may get "rekerky"
liqueurs at threepence a time, and there is a Japanese cafe in Edward
Street.

Of course there are numbers of places in Soho where you may dine more
lavishly and expensively, and where you will find a band and a careful
wine-list, such as Maxim's, The Coventry, The Florence, and Kettner's.
Here you do not escape for a shilling, or anything like it. Maxim's does
an excellent half-crown dinner, and so, too, does The Rendezvous. The
others range from three shillings to five shillings; and as the price of
the meal increases so do the prices on the wine-lists increase, though
you drink the same wine in each establishment.

The atmosphere of the cheaper places is, however, distinctly more
companionable than that of these others. In the latter you have Surbiton
and Streatham, anxious to display its small stock of evening frocks and
dress suits; very proper, very conscious of itself, very proud of having
broken away from parental tradition. But in the smaller places, which
are supported by a regular clientele of the French clerks, workmen, and
warehouse porters who are employed in and about Oxford Street, the sense
of camaraderie and naturalness is very strong. These people are not
doing anything extraordinary. They are just having dinner, and they are
gay and _insouciant_ about it, as they are about everything except
frivolity. It is not exciting for them to dine on five courses instead
of on roast mutton and vegetables