The merry Widows
SIGNS and portents in Cornhill. At num- ber 39, the poor old Union Discount Com- pany is boarded up. The surviving directors must be taking my advice and turning it into the Last Chance Saloon. From his plaque on the facade, the poet Thomas Gray tries not to notice what is happen to his birthplace. Glumly, the inscripuon quotes him: 'The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.' A few doors down at number 28 is a commercial palace in gleaming white stone, the dower house of the Scottish Wid- ows. Here, too, the boards are up. It is, I find, about to be relaunched by Eldridge Pope 0. f Dorchester as the Bar Excellence. They will offer their admirable wines by the glass or the bottle, and meals too. Upstairs, of course, there might still be a few Scottish widows..I don't know what the City is coming to but it will be interesting, as ever, to find out.
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