A Little Dinner in an Hour
It fell out on a day in this last autumn, that I had to go down from London to a place of
seaside resort, on an hour's business, accompanied by my esteemed friend Bullfinch. Let
the place of seaside resort be, for the nonce, called Namelesston.
I had been loitering about Paris in very hot weather, pleasantly breakfasting in the open
air in the garden of the Palais Royal or the Tuileries, pleasantly dining in the open air in
the Elysian Fields, pleasantly taking my cigar and lemonade in the open air on the Italian
Boulevard towards the small hours after midnight. Bullfinch - an excellent man of
business - has summoned me back across the Channel, to transact this said hour's
business at Namelesston; and thus it fell out that Bullfinch and I were in a railway
carriage together on our way to Namelesston, each with his return-ticket in his waistcoat-
pocket.
Says Bullfinch, 'I have a proposal to make. Let us dine at the Temeraire.'
I asked Bullfinch, did he recommend the Temeraire? inasmuch as I had not been rated on
the books of the Temeraire for many years.
Bullfinch declined to accept the responsibility of recommending the Temeraire, but on
the whole was rather sanguine about it. He 'seemed to remember,' Bullfinch said, that he
had dined well there. A plain dinner, but good. Certainly not like a Parisian dinner (here
Bullfinch obviously became the prey of want of confidence), but of its kind very fair.
I appeal to Bullfinch's intimate knowledge of my wants and ways to decide whether I was
usually ready to be pleased with any dinner, or - for the matter of that - with anything that
was fair of its kind and really what it claimed to be. Bullfinch doing me the honour to
respond in the affirmative, I agreed to ship myself as an able trencherman on board the
Temeraire.
'Now, our plan shall be this,' says Bullfinch, with his forefinger at his nose. 'As soon as
we get to Namelesston, we'll drive straight to the Temeraire, and order a little dinner in
an hour. And as we shall not have more than enough time in which to dispose of it
comfortably, what do you say to giving the house the best opportunities of serving it hot
and quickly by dining in the coffee-room?'
What I had to say was, Certainly. Bullfinch (who is by nature of a hopeful constitution)
then began to babble of green geese. But I checked him in that Falstaffian vein, urging
considerations of time and cookery.
In due sequence of events we drove up to the Temeraire, and alighted. A youth in livery
received us on the door-step. 'Looks well,' said Bullfinch confidentially. And then aloud,
'Coffee- room!'
