There are in the room glass screens to keep off all draughts; there are bent-wood stands on which to hang coats and hats, and a staircase with a luxurious carpet on it and a brass rail leads down into the grill-room of the Imperial Restaurant next door. But the waiter, who had already put down by our places two long sloping glasses of the clear cold beer, now brings us the plates of smoking goose soup, and excellent soup it is, with the suet dumplings, as light as possible, in it, and pieces of the breast of the goose. Why we English neglect the goose as a soup-maker I do not know, as indeed I do not know why we neglect the goose at all and consign him to the kitchen as a meal for the servants while the turkey is being eaten upstairs. The veal, which, I should imagine, is imported from Germany, is excellent, and the huge chop of it that is given to each of us must, I think, be an extra attention on the part of the management, for M. Oddenino has just come in and has taken a seat at a table in a recess, where he dines frugally every night so as to be within call of his restaurant next door, and he has called the attention of the little manager to our presence. So perhaps we are being given what in Club life is known as the "Committee-man's chop." Our third venture is just as satisfactory as the two previous ones, for the great angle of open pear tart is in every way excellent. The bill presented at the close of our meal is as moderate as the food was good. We have each in our meal consumed three shillings and three pence worth of well-cooked food and cold beer. So again I ask, Why should the German _cuisine_ in London be the Cinderella of the daughters of Gastronomy? LX MY SINS OF OMISSION No one can be more aware than I am of the things I have left undone in writing of the restaurants of London, of the many interesting dining-places of which I have made no mention, of the eating-houses with historical associations that I have overlooked. I have done no more than touch the hem of the garment of the City. As I write I recall that the Ship and Turtle, the Palmerston and other notable restaurants I have passed by without even a word, and that I have given only a line to Pim's and Simpson's, and the George and Vulture, each of which is worthy of a chapter. The Liverpool Street Hotel, which I have singled out, is not by any means the only great railway hotel in London where the catering is excellent. I used at one time to dine every Derby night with the late Mr George Dobell at the St Pancras Hotel, and a better cooked dinner no one could have given me. The Euston Hotel had, and I have no doubt has, an admirable cellar of wines. There is a chapter waiting to be written concerning the changes that have taken place in railway refreshment-room catering, with, as examples, the dining-rooms at the two Victoria stations and the _table d'hôte_ dinner that is provided for playgoers at Waterloo.