When, after many rebuffs, we had found ourselves lodgings for
the night, we had half an hour to spare before the theatrical performance which formed the chief attraction of the Festival. We repaired in haste to the principal hotel, only to be informed that all the tables in the dining-room were already occupied or reserved. It was vain to point out that there was ample room for at least half a dozen more small tables. The head waiter could offer us nothing but sympathy. The chances of getting anything more substantial elsewhere were by this time infinitesimal. We consumed biscuits and beer morosely in an inn.
The play was over at a quarter past ten, and we hurried, ravening, to another large hotel, in quest of supper. But the kitchen was shut up, the dining-room tables were laid for breakfast, and the staff hag-ridden by etiquette : " You can't very well eat bread and cheese in the lounge, can you, gentlemen ? " For myself, I could have eaten pemmican in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot ; but I was loth to shock the susceptibilities of the half dozen shadowy figures who appeared to have made an appointment with death among the Landseers and the chintzes and the copies of motoring periodicals. So we went away.
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