Casanova's Chinese Restaurant Read Online Free PDF

Sarasate up and down the country clad as Little Lord Fauntleroy.’
    ‘He must have been at least seventeen when he last appeared in his black velvet suit and white lace collar,’ said Moreland. ‘The coat was so tight he could hardly draw his bow across the fiddle.’
    ‘They say Carolo is having trouble with his girl,’ said Maclintick. ‘Makes him even gloomier than usual.’
    ‘Who is his girl?’ asked Moreland indifferently.
    ‘Quite young, I believe,’ said Maclintick. ‘Gossage was asking about her. Carolo doesn’t find it as easy to get engagements as he used – and he won’t teach.’
    ‘Wasn’t there talk of Mrs Andriadis helping him?’ said Moreland. ‘Arranging a performance at her house or something.’
    I listened to what was being said without feeling – as I came to feel later – that I was, in one sense, part and parcel of the same community; that when people gossiped about matters like Carolo and his girl, one was listening to a morsel, if only an infinitesimal morsel, of one’s own life. However, I heard no more about Carolo at that moment, because Barnby could now be seen standing in the doorway of the saloon bar, slowly apprising himself of the company present, the problem each individual might pose. By that hour the Mortimer had begun to fill. A man with a yellowish beard and black hat was buying drinks for two girls drawn from that indeterminate territory eternally disputed between tarts and art students; three pimply young men were arguing about economics; a couple of taxi-drivers conferred with the barmaid. For several seconds Barnby stared about him, viewing the people in the Mortimer with apparent disapproval. Then, thickset, his topcoat turned up to his ears, he moved slowly forward, at the same time casting an expert, all-embracing glance at the barmaid and the two art girls. Reaching the table at last by these easy stages, he nodded to the rest of us, but did not sit down. Instead, he regarded the party closely. Such evolutions were fairly typical of Barnby’s behaviour in public; demeanour effective with most strangers, on whom he seemed ultimately to force friendliness by at first withholding himself. Later he would unfreeze. With women, that apparently negative method almost always achieved good results. It was impossible to say whether this manner of Barnby’s was unconscious or deliberate. Moreland, for example, saw in Barnby a consummate actor.
    ‘Ralph is the Garrick of our day,’ Moreland used to say, ‘or at least the Tree or Irving. Barnby never misses a gesture with women, not an inflection of the voice.’
    The two of them, never close friends, used to see each other fairly often in those days. Moreland liked painting and held stronger views about pictures than most musicians.
    ‘I can see Ralph has talent,’ he said of Barnby, ‘but why use combinations of colour that make you think he is a Frenchman or a Catalan?’
    ‘I know nothing of music,’ Barnby had, in turn, once remarked, ‘but Hugh Moreland’s accompaniment to that film sounded to me like a lot of owls quarrelling in a bicycle factory.’
    All the same, in spite of mutual criticism, they were in general pretty well disposed to one another.
    ‘Buy us a drink, Ralph,’ said Moreland, as Barnby stood moodily contemplating us.
    ‘I’m not sure I can afford that,’ said Barnby. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’
    ‘Take a generous view,’ said Moreland, who liked being stood plenty of drinks.
    After a minute or two’s meditation Barnby drew some money from his pocket, glanced at the coins in the palm of his hand, and laid some of them on the bar. Then he brought the glasses across to the table.
    ‘Had a look at the London Group this afternoon,’ he said.
    Barnby sat down. He and Moreland began to talk of English painting. The subject evidently bored Maclintick, who seemed to like Barnby as little as he cared for Mr Deacon. Conversation moved on to painting in Paris. Finally, the idea