Now, there is one thing that I do not like abroad; yea, two that are utterly distasteful to me. The one thing is my countrymen’s hotels and restaurants. These houses of refection I have usually found exceedingly uncomfortable. So I was disposed to look somewhat coldly upon His Lordship’s invitation, as printed upon placards, and stencilled on the walls, till I was assured that his beef was really genuine, and that he was an Englishman without guile. His Lordship’s mansion I found unpretending, even to obscurity. There was no porte-cochère, no courtyard, no gilt railings, nor green verandahs. His Lordship’s hotel was, in fact, only a little slice of a shop, with one dining-room over it; for which I was told he paid an enormous rent--some thousands of francs a-year. In his window were displayed certain English viands pleasant to the sight: a mighty beef-steak pie just cut; the kidney end of a loin of veal, with real English stuffing, palpable to sight; some sausages that might have been pork, and of Epping; some potatoes in their homely brown jackets, just out at elbows, as your well-done potatoes should be, with their flannel under-garments peeping through; and a spherical mass, something of the size and shape of a bombshell, dark in colour, speckled black and white, and that my beating heart told me was a plum-pudding. A prodigious Cheshire cheese, rugged as Helvellyn, craggy as Criffell, filled up the background like a range of yellow mountains. At the base there were dark forests of bottles branded with the names of Allsopp, and Bass, and Guinness, and there were cheering announcements framed and glazed, respecting Pale Ale on draught, L.L. whisky, and Genuine Old Tom.[B] I rubbed my hands in glee. “Ha! ha!” I said internally. “Nothing like our British aristocracy, after all. The true stock, sir! May His Lordship’s shadow never diminish.” [B] Our gallant allies have yet much to learn about our English manners and customs. Only the other night, in the Foyer of the Grand Opera, I saw (and you may see it there still if you are incredulous) a tastefully enamelled placard, announcing that “genuine Old Tom” was to be had at the Buffet. Imagine Sir Harcourt Courtley asking the Countess of Swansdown, in the crush-room of Covent Garden Theatre, if she would take half a quartern of gin!