420 ANGEL PAVEMENT

as nothing compared with the meat. The place was a
vegetarian's nightmare. It seemed to be perpetually
celebrating the victory of some medieval baron. Whole
beeves and droves must have been slaughtered daily in
its name. If you asked for roast beef at Bundle's, they
took you at your word, and promptly wheeled up to you
the red dripping half of a roasted ox, and after the
waiter had implored you to examine it and had asked
you a few solemn questions about fat and lean, under-
done and over-done, he cut you off a pound or two here,
a pound or two there. A request for mutton was not
treated perhaps with the same high seriousness, but
even that meant that legs and shoulders came trundling
up from all directions, and you found yourself facing a
few assorted pounds of it on your plate. The waiters
themselves had a roasted jointy look, though most of
them were lean and under-done, whereas most of the
guests were obviously fat and over-done and suffering
from gigantic blood pressures that took another leap
upward every time they went out of these doors. It was
the meatiest place Miss Matfield had ever seen, and
she had a suspicion that if she had not been feeling
really hungry, it might have made her feel rather sick.
As it was, she welcomed the look of it, and smell
of it, and enjoyed, too, its very definite masculine
atmosphere.

Mutton was wheeled at Miss Matfield and beef was
wheeled at Mr. Golspie, and, while acolytes brought
vegetables, the high priests gravely pointed to fat and
lean and under-done and over-done, and then sliced
away with their exquisite long narrow knives. Mr.
Golspie, after consulting briefly with her, ordered a good
rich burgundy. Then, after Mr. Golspie, a true