At the table to one side of us in the big bow sat a couple who were also dining on duckling and drinking a bottle of champagne, for the Mitre has an excellent cellar of wines at prices far below those of London restaurants, and at the table on the other side were two ladies and three men who had been on the river and had brought river appetites and river good spirits to table with them. Farther back in the room were other little parties of diners. I had asked host Sadler some questions about the Masonic banquets which are held in the red-walled rooms the windows of which overlook the bowling-green, and after our dinner was finished he brought me a little sheaf of menus of banquets, and he also brought a bottle of the old Cognac of the house, which he was anxious that we should taste. I looked through the menus, and the following of a banquet of the Bard of Avon Lodge seemed to me to be that of a distinctly English feast. It has in it the _matelote_ of stewed eels and the braised sweetbreads for which I did not find room in our little dinner for two: SOUP. Purée of Asparagus. Spring. FISH. Grilled Trout. Sauce Tartare. Stewed Eels en Matelote. ENTRÉE. Braised Sweetbreads. REMOVES. Roast Fore Quarter of Lamb. French Beans. Ducklings. Peas. Asparagus. SWEETS. Gooseberry Foule. Cream. Madeira Jellies. Iced Pudding. DESSERT. My crony and I sat sipping the old brandy, talking at intervals, and watching how the daylight gave place to the afterglow, how the people on the towpath thinned in numbers to single figures, and the homeward bound boats on the river became fewer and fewer. As the light died out the river became a sheet of dull silver, and the colour of the old brick walls of the Palace gardens and its out-buildings grew to deeper and a deeper purple, and the great trees became warm black silhouettes against the darkening sky and the lights in the house-boats moored by the bank began to throw reflections into the stream. Everything, even a spring evening at Hampton Court, must come to an end, and at last I called for my bill. The dinner was eight shillings a head, and so moderate had we been in our summer beverages--the old brandy was host Sadler's contribution--that the total came to a sovereign. We walked along the path up the river in the cool of the evening till we could see the lights in Garrick's Villa, and then my crony and I bade each other good-night and went our separate ways. XXV IN THE HANDS OF PI(E)RATES THE CONNAUGHT ROOMS