Grace was sung by a quartet in the musicians' gallery, and then the company settled down to listen to speeches interspersed with song. By each guest was placed a little cigar-case, within it two cigars; but these were not to be smoked yet awhile. While we sipped the '63 Port, we listened to an M.P. as he responded for "The Houses of Parliament." Later the Irish Q.C., who spoke for "The Visitors," caught up the ball of fun, and tossed it to and fro, and charming ladies and mere men sang songs and quartets, and my host told me, in the intervals, of the great store of the old Clarets and Ports that the Mercers had in their cellars, which was enough to make a lover of good wine covet his neighbour's goods. And still later, after the cigars had filled the drawing-room with a light grey mist, I went forth, this time down the grand oaken staircase, with its lions clasping escutcheons. I passed into Cheapside with a very lively sense of gratitude to the Mercers in general, and my hospitable host in particular. XLIX THE CAVENDISH HOTEL A GREAT BRITISH WOMAN COOK Often enough during the past quarter of a century I have heard some hostess say reassuringly to someone whom she had asked to a dinner-party to meet someone else of the first importance: "Mrs Lewis is coming to cook the dinner." That short sentence has meant a great deal, for Mrs Lewis is the most celebrated woman cook that this or probably any other age has produced. I do not even except the great Mrs Glasse. If in England there was a _cordon-bleu_ for women cooks Mrs Lewis would be a Grand Officer of the Order. She is the proprietress of the Cavendish Hotel, which occupies three houses, 81 to 83 Jermyn Street, and it was to Jermyn Street that I went to make her acquaintance. I waited in the tea-room of the hotel, a room, round the walls of which hangs a line of photographs of some of the great ones of the world, and I wondered what kind of a lady it might be that I was presently going to meet, for though I had tasted Mrs Rosa Lewis's handiwork often enough I had never set eyes on her in the flesh.