I often, when I am going to an early first night at the theatre, cut matters so fine as to dinner that I have only time to eat a couple of sandwiches at a buffet, and as often as not the barmaid, knowing that I am not a regular customer, does a feat of sleight of hand and gives me the roof, the two top sandwiches of the pile. If I protest I am assured that they were fresh-cut not a quarter of an hour ago, and being a moral coward in such matters, I eat them. If I postpone my sandwich meal until after the theatre a second thickness of armour-plate has been added to the bread. One evening, walking home after the theatre to my flat in the wild north-west, I became aware when I reached Oxford Circus that I was very hungry. Through the windows of Appenrodt's shop at Oxford Circus I could see men in white jackets very busily slicing bread and making sandwiches for the people who sat at the little tables. I went in, ate a couple of ham sandwiches which had been made for me before my eyes, and blessed the name of Appenrodt, for they were all that a ham sandwich should be. When Appenrodt's headquarters at No. 1 Coventry Street were a-building I watched with interest the putting in of the big plate-glass windows, and after its completion I looked whenever I passed at the big _cartes du jour_ which are put up outside wherever there is space for them. One evening, on my way to a club in the Leicester Square district to dine, I found, just as I arrived at the Coventry Street corner, that I had cut my time very close, and that if I dined at the club I should not be in my place at the rising of the curtain. I looked at the big bills of fare outside Appenrodt's, and went up into the restaurant on the first floor to see whether I could get there a quickly served meal. I had an excellent plate of _chicken consommé_, a cut from one of the joints of the day--roast veal and bacon--and a rice pudding. I found this simple food quite excellent, and I got to my theatre in plenty of time. My first experience led me on to other dinners in Appenrodt's restaurant on the first floor, and I found that the dishes, without exception, were admirably cooked, and that the soup and the _soufflé omelette_ with which I now always begin and end a repast at Appenrodt's are noticeably excellent. There is plenty of choice, for the menu of the day comprises four soups, ten fish dishes, at least the same number of entrées, some of these being those that Germans love, vegetables and sweets in due proportion, four joints at lunch-time and the same number at dinner. This is a typical dinner that I ate one night at Appenrodt's, and these are the prices I paid for the dishes:--_crème conti_, an excellent white soup, 6d.; _suprême de brill Dugleré_, 1s. 6d.; _pilaff de foie de volaille à la Grecque_, 1s. 3d.; and _omelette Mylord_, which is a form of _omelette surprise_, 1s. 6d.; and I drank therewith a pint of Rhenish sparkling muscatel with all the taste and bouquet of the grape in it.