The other people who had dined had gradually melted away; the band had left its gallery and we could hear its strains coming from some distant room. The young people chattered away about theatres and dances and we might have sat at table until midnight had not the _maître d'hôtel_ suggested that we might like to look at the other rooms on the ground floor before going into the smoking lounge, where the band was playing and where a lady was presently to sing. We walked through a charming little ante-room with golden furniture, into the great pink banqueting-room which is used for dances and balls as well as for great feasts. It is the part of the Hyde Park Hotel with which I am most familiar, and I told the young people, who were more anxious to know which way the boards ran and whether it was a good floor for dancing than they were for descriptions of banquets, how at one of the dinners of the Gastronomes in this fine room the table decorations were so arranged as to be high above the diners' heads and that the air seemed full of flowers and how M. Müller had invented for that feast the beau-ideal of a vegetable _sorbet--tomates givrées_. I had thoughts of giving them details of a wonderful banquet given at the hotel by the Society of Merchants, but I am sure they would not have had patience to listen, so what I abstained from telling them then, lest they might think me a gluttonous old bore, I here set down for your consideration, for you can skip it if you will, whereas the two young people would, I am sure, have been kind enough to listen and to pretend to appreciate its beauties: Cantaloup Grande Fine Champagne. Caviar. Consommé Florentine. Crème de Pois frais. Filets de Truite Saumonée au Coulis d'Ecrevisses. Volaille de la Bresse Châtelaine. Selle de Béhague à la Provençale. Aubergines au Beurre Noisette. Cailles Royales à l'Ananas. Pommes Colerette. Dodines de Canard à la Gelée. Cœurs de Laitues aux œufs. Pêches Framboisées. Friandises. Dessert. VINS. Sandringham Sherry. Schloss Volkrads, 1904. Pommery and Greno, 1900. Château Brane Cantenac, 1899. Sandeman's, 1884. Marett Gautier, 1830. Liqueurs.