[Illustration: THE “BEAUTIFUL SWELLS” SPOOF SUPPER--A PAGE OF CARICATURES BY TOM WEBSTER]
Some of the guests now began to suspect that the whole affair was a spoof, but many did not; and the altercations between these innocent ones and the waiters, the latter of whom were all in the know, were frequent and highly diverting. A man, for instance, would order salmon, or venison, or saddle of mutton, and would have pig’s trotters and potatoes, the latter boiled in their jackets, almost literally thrown at him. No matter what anybody called for, the result was nearly always the same--pig’s trotters and potatoes.
The soup was of the cabbage-water variety, in which floated “property,” cockroaches; these the waiters would remove with their fingers, purposely grimy for the occasion. To add to the confusion some few of our guests, here and there, were actually served--by my instructions--with the venison, salmon, or whatever else they ordered.
Those sitting to the right and left of these lucky ones regarded them with envious eyes, and tried to force back on the waiters their own unsavoury trotters and potatoes. As a result, of course, confusion soon became worse confounded. Nor was it allayed in any degree by the tactics of Harry Tate, who was continually jumping up from his chair in order to make some such announcement as follows, delivered in tones of becoming gravity: “Gentlemen: I am sorry, but the plovers’ eggs have not arrived; gentlemen, I regret to say that the salmon is off; gentlemen, it is very annoying, but I’m afraid we shall have to dispense with the ortolans--there are none to be had in the market.”
In despair some of the guests tried to eat their bread, but found that the seemingly crisp and inviting-looking little rolls were filled, as regards their interiors, with nothing more edible than cotton wool. Everything on the table, or served up at the table, in fact (bar the trotters and potatoes), was of the “property” variety, got specially from Paris at considerable trouble and expense. The eggs and bacon looked real, and they were, in fact, served with real gravy; but the eggs were china imitations, and cemented to the plates at that, and the bacon was of similar material. The luscious-looking peaches and grapes on the central fruit-stands were waxen imitations. Those who tried the cheese spat it out again hurriedly; finding it to be soap--mottled for the gorgonzola, yellow for the Cheddar. The coffee and the liqueurs, the soda and the whisky, were anything and everything but what they were supposed to be. Even the cigars and the cigarettes went bang directly one started to smoke them.