Don’t be surprised at the charge, two-pence, for washing your hands in the Grill Room lavatory, and unless you occupy a room, the charge for use of lavatory in the hotel proper is three-pence; but it is worth half a crown merely to see the lavatory, or rather the staircase and landing leading to it, so beautiful are the colored marble fountain, the eastern rugs, the fernery and the Oriental lamps, with which this lower part of the house is decorated. The view of this lower part from the marble staircase on the main floor has been called fairy-like; it is certainly very pleasing.
Strangers are not allowed the run and freedom of the hotels in Europe as they are in “the States.” They can’t use the smoking-room, read the newspapers, loiter about the halls, make a general rendezvous of the house and help themselves to stationery in European hotels as they do on this side. Their hotels lack some of our popular features and the excellent service and discipline of the American hotels, but, on the other hand, they are not so noisy, and are more private. American hotels suit Americans, and the hotels in England satisfy the wants and desires of English people.
A Characteristic English Restaurant.--A good, plain, thoroughly wholesome English dinner is served in an appetizing way by English waiters at Simpson’s, in the Strand, next door to Terry’s Theatre, opposite Exeter Hall. You get a bowl of good soup, a course of fish, a cut from the joint, a salad, two kinds of vegetables, with bread and butter, a biscuit and a bit of rich Gorgonzola or dry Wiltshire cheese to wind up with, and your whole bill will be four shillings, to which add threepence for “attendance,” which is charged in the bill, and about threepence more which you will hand to the waiter. A feature of the place is that the hot joint, over a chafing dish and on a small table, is wheeled round to you, and it is there cut before your eyes and transferred to your plate. You can get a lower-priced dinner in London, and higher-priced dinners where you please, but none of a better quality and none that is more satisfactory unless you demand fancy fol de rols, indigestible entrées and French dishes made of little or nothing.