crowded on Thursday afternoon. The Vernon Hotel stood, as if by
accident, in the corner of a square in Belgravia. It was a small
hotel; and a very inconvenient one. But its very inconveniences
were considered as walls protecting a particular class. One
inconvenience, in particular, was held to be of vital importance:
the fact that practically only twenty-four people could dine in
the place at once. The only big dinner table was the celebrated
terrace table, which stood open to the air on a sort of veranda
overlooking one of the most exquisite old gardens in London. Thus
it happened that even the twenty-four seats at this table could
only be enjoyed in warm weather; and this making the enjoyment yet
more difficult made it yet more desired. The existing owner of
the hotel was a Jew named Lever; and he made nearly a million out
of it, by making it difficult to get into. Of course he combined
with this limitation in the scope of his enterprise the most
careful polish in its performance. The wines and cooking were
really as good as any in Europe, and the demeanour of the
attendants exactly mirrored the fixed mood of the English upper
class. The proprietor knew all his waiters like the fingers on
his hand; there were only fifteen of them all told. It was much
easier to become a Member of Parliament than to become a waiter in
that hotel. Each waiter was trained in terrible silence and
smoothness, as if he were a gentleman's servant. And, indeed,
there was generally at least one waiter to every gentleman who
dined.

The club of The Twelve True Fishermen would not have consented
to dine anywhere but in such a place, for it insisted on a
luxurious privacy; and would have been quite upset by the mere
thought that any other club was even dining in the same building.