Practically the sole purpose of the place was to fill some one's pockets, for, as the patrons were playing at being frightful dogs, the management knew that they could do as they liked with the tariff. The boys wouldn't go to night-clubs if they were not spendthrifts. Result: whisky-and-soda, seven-and-sixpence; cup of coffee, half a crown. And nobody ever had the pluck to ask for change out of a sovereign. Now, I love my Cockneys, heart and soul. And, just because I love them so much, I do wish to goodness they wouldn't be Bohemian; I do wish to goodness they would keep out of Soho cafes. They only come in quest of a Bohemianism which isn't there. They can get much better food at home, or they can afford to get a really good meal at an English hotel. I wish they would leave Soho alone for the people like myself who feed there because it is cheap, and because the waiters will give us credit. "Garcong," cried the diner whose food was underdone, "these sausages ne sont pas fait!" If the Cockney goes on like this, he will spoil Soho, and he will lose his own delightful individuality and idiosyncrasy. But, apart from the invasion of Soho by the girl-clerk and the book-keeper, one cannot but love it. I love it because, in my early days of scant feeding, it was the one spot in London where I could gorge to repletion for a shilling. There was a little place in Wardour Street, the Franco-Suisse--it is still there--whose shilling table d'hote was a marvel: And I always had my bob's worth, I can assure you; for those were the days when one went hungry all day in order to buy concert tickets. Indeed, there were occasions when the breadbasket was removed from my table, so savage was the raid I made upon it. There, one night a week, we feasted gloriously. We revelled. We read the _Gaulois_ and _Gil Blas_ and papers of a friskier tone. There still exists a Servian cafe where all manner of inflammatory organs of Nihilism may be read, and where heavy-bearded men--Anarchists, you hope, but piano-builders, you fear--would sit for three hours over their dinner Talking, _Talking_, TALKING. Then for another hour they would play backgammon, and at last roll out, blasphemously, to the darkened street, and so Home to those mysterious lodgings about Broad Street and Pulteney Street. How the kitchens manage to do those shilling table d'hotes is a mystery which I have never solved, though I have visited "below" on one or two occasions and talked with the chefs. There are about a dozen cafes now which, for the Homeric shilling, give you four courses, bread _ad lib_, and coffee to follow. And it is good; it is a refection for the gods--certain selected gods.