The table,--I mean the eating,--with most men the first thing, and with me not the last,--is generally prepared by a French cook, as well and as cheaply as it is possible to have it in London. As the Club provides the wines, and sells them again to each member, they are very drinkable and reasonable. But 'gourmands' must ever miss the finest wines, even at the best tables in London. This arises from the strange habit of the English (and these people, too, stick faster to their habits than an oyster to its shell,) of getting their wines from London wine-merchants, instead of importing them from the places where they grow, as we do. Now these wine-merchants adulterate their wine to such a degree, that one who was lately prosecuted for having some thousand bottles of port and claret in his cellars which had not paid duty, proved that all this wine was manufactured by himself in London, and thus escaped the penalty. You may imagine, therefore, what sort of brewage you often get under the high-sounding names of Champagne, Lafitte, &c. The dealers scarcely ever buy the very best which is to be had in the native lands of the several wines, for the obvious reason that they could make little or no profit of it; at best they only use it to enable them to get off other wine of inferior quality. Excuse this wine-digression, which to you, who drink only water, cannot be very interesting; but you know I write for us both, and to me the subject is I confess not unimportant. "_Gern fuhre ich Wein im Munde._" But let us back to our Clubs. The peculiarity of English manners may be much better observed here, at the first 'abord,' than in the great world, which is everywhere more or less alike; whereas the same individuals, of whom it is in part composed, show themselves here with much less restraint. In the first place, the stranger must admire the refinement of convenience with which Englishmen sit: it must be confessed that a man who is ignorant of the ingenious English chairs, of every form, and adapted to every degree of fatigue, indisposition, or constitutional peculiarity, really loses a large share of earthly enjoyment. It is a positive pleasure even to see an Englishman sit, or rather lie, in one of these couch-like chairs by the fire-side. A contrivance like a reading-desk attached to the arm, and furnished with a candlestick, is so placed before him, that with the slightest touch he can bring it nearer or further, push it to the right or the left, at pleasure. A curious machine, several of which stand around the large fire-place, receives one or both of his feet; and the hat on his head completes the enchanting picture of superlative comfort.