Expense Account Society What an appalling fascination for me has
that increasing class of people which eats only on expense accounts. You find some cheap foreign restaurant where the food is good and where the customers are simple guzzlers like yourself, who ,pay for their meals out of their earnings. Women and men are in fairly equal proportion at the tables. Then one day you notice a group of men in the corner who are receiv- ing extra attention. Two of them are sleek and neatly dressed and have put on flesh early, thanks to well-organised expense accounts. With them is a bewildered technical consultant, not used to this sort of place, pulling at his ears and straightening his tie. The host is anxious to impress his guests with his influential position in the firm, so he orders a vinegary drink masquerading as sherry, oysters, champagne, lobsters and various other expensive things which have never been the specialities of the house. You come again in a month's time and the restaurant is changed. You are no longer welcome, prices are doubled and the food has deteriorated. Men pre- dominate at the tables and one or two hard-faced business women add a scarcely feminine note. You do not go there again, but the restaurant proprietor is making a fortune. He does not need you. I am told that in some well known restaurants a skilful waiter can retain the bill from an unsus- pecting customer or buy it from a suspicious one. Let us say that the bill is for £7 and he pays ten shillings for it. He can then sell it to an executive for, let us say, £2. The executive can then put it in to his firm's accountant and receive £7.
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