e "Laurestinas," but it might serve
for once. Alas! Sir John did not find the right place, for there are
"right places" amongst the Italian restaurants of London. He beat a
hasty retreat from the first he entered, when the officious proprietor
assured him that he would serve up a dejeuner in the best French style.
At the second he chose a dish with an Italian name, but the name was the
only Italian thing about it. The experiment had failed. It seemed as
if Italian restaurateurs were sworn not to cook Italian dishes, and the
next day he went to do as best he could at the club.

But before he reached the club door he recalled how, many years ago, he
and other young bloods used to go for chops to Morton's, a queer little
house at the back of St. James' Street, and towards Morton's he
now turned his steps. As he entered it, it seemed as if it was only
yesterday that he was there. He beheld the waiter, with mouth all awry,
through calling down the tube. The same old mahogany partitions to the
boxes, and the same horse-hair benches. Sir John seated himself in a
box, where there was one other luncher in the corner, deeply absorbed
over a paper. This luncher raised his head and Sir John recognised Van
der Roet.

"My dear Vander, whatever brought you here, where nothing is to be had
but chops? I didn't know you could eat a chop."

"I didn't know it myself till to-day," said Van der Roet, with a hungry
glance at the waiter, who rushed by with a plate of smoking chops in
each hand. "The fact is, I've had a sort of hankering after an Italian
lunch, and I went out to find one, but I didn't exactly hit on the right
shop, so I came here, where I've been told you can get a chop properly
cooked, if you don't mind waiting."

"Ah! I see," said Sir John, laughing. "We've both been on the same
quest, and have been equally unlucky. Well, we shall satisfy our hunger
here at any rate, and not unpleasantly either."

"I went to one place," said Van der Roet "and before ordering I asked
the waiter if there was any garlic in the dish I had ordered. 'Garlic,
aglio, no, sir, never.' Whereupon I thought I would go somewhere else.
Next I entered the establishment of Baldassare Romanelli. How could
a man with such a name serve anything else than the purest Italian
cookery, I reasoned, so I ordered, unquestioning, a piatio with an
ideal Italian name, Manzo alla Terracina. Alas! the beef used in the
composition thereof must have come in a refrigerat