I dined one day early last week at the Trocadero, a little specially ordered _tête-à-tête_ dinner over which the chef had taken much trouble--his _Suprêmes de sole Trocadéro_ and _Poulet de printemps Rodisi_ are well worth remembering--and while I drank the Moët '84, cuvée 1714, and luxuriated in some brandy dating back to 1815, the solution of a problem that had puzzled me mildly came to me. An old friend was sending his son, a boy at Harrow, up to London to see a dentist before going back to school, and asked me if I would mind giving him something to eat, and taking him to a performance of some kind. I said "Yes," of course; but I felt it was something of an undertaking. When I was at Harrow my ideas of luxury consisted of ices at Fuller's and sausages and mashed potatoes carried home in a paper bag. I had no idea as to what Jones minor's tastes might be; but if he was anything like what I was then he would prefer plenty of good food, combined with music and gorgeousness and excitement, to the most delicate _mousse_ ever made, eaten in philosophic calm. The Trocadero was the place; if he was not impressed by the dinner, by the magnificence of the rooms, by the beautiful staircase, by the music, then I did not know my Harrow boy. Jones minor arrived at my club at five minutes to the half-past seven, and I saw at once that he was not a young gentleman to be easily impressed. He had on a faultless black short jacket and trousers, a white waistcoat, and a tuberose in his buttonhole. I asked him if he knew the Trocadero, and he said that he had not dined there; but plenty of boys in his house had, and had said that it was jolly good. When we came to the entrance of the Trocadero, an entrance that always impresses me by its palatial splendour, I pointed out to him the veined marble of the walls and the magnificent frieze in which Messrs Moira and Jenkins, two of the cleverest of our young artists, have struck out a new line of decoration; and when I had paused a while to let him take it in I asked him what he thought of it, and he said he thought it was jolly good. Mr Alfred Salmon, in chief command, and the good-looking _maître d'hôtel_, both saw us to our table, and a plump waiter whom I remember of old at the Savoy was there with the various menu cards in his hand. The table had been heaped with roses in our honour, and I felt that all this attention must impress Jones minor; but he unfolded his napkin with the calm of unconcern, and I regretted that I had not arranged to have the band play "See the Conquering Hero Comes" and have a triumphal arch erected in his honour.