For it is at this time, when the ebb-tide of humanity sets strongest from the City, that the honoured guest of a City Company may be seen fighting his way, like a minnow against stream, in a hansom to his dinner at the hall of the Guild. Still, he goes "where glory waits him," so what recks he that the hour is altogether uncongenial and inconvenient?
Nevertheless, I know as a matter of fact that this earliness compels many invited guests to decline the honour and pleasure of dining with a "Gill" (as "Robert" would say), who would without doubt accept the invitation were the hours of the Guild as reasonable as their cuisine is excellent.
Personally, however, it has often been a pleasure to me to leave my easel at four o'clock and prepare to meet my practical City patrons "on their own midden" at "5.30 for 6."
As an illustration I will record a reminiscence of a very pleasant evening I once spent in the City, when the festivities--save for my having to make a speech--went off with that success which is inseparable from City dinners.
Imprimis, I arrive in daylight and evening dress. These two, like someone and holy water, don't agree, for not all the waters of Geneva nor the arts of the queen of all _blanchisseuses_ can destroy the horrid contrast between a white tie and a white shirt; yet another good argument in favour of a reasonable dinner hour.
I hate being in a minority. More especially do I detest being in such a decidedly pronounced minority as one joins when one drives _into_ the City about six o'clock in the evening against a vast current of toilers of commerce homeward bound. It may be weak, but I feel it all the same. I seem to divine the thoughts of the omnibus driver as he gazes down upon me from his exalted perch--he does not think my shirt is clean. His sixteen "outsides" bestow upon me a supercilious look that conveys to me that they opine I am merely cabbing it to the station _en route_ for a "suburban hop." But I bear up under it all, and think of the magnificent banquet of which they, poor things, know nothing, and I am beginning to feel quite proud when a brute of a fellow in charge of a van catches his wheel in that of my cab and nearly pitches me out. I hurriedly decide to decline the next invitation I receive for a City dinner.