Casanova's Chinese Restaurant Read Online Free PDF Page B

of going to a film was abandoned. It was getting late in the evening. The programme would be too far advanced. Instead, we agreed to dine together. Maclintick went off upstairs to telephone to his wife and tell her he would not be home until later.
    ‘There will be a row about that,’ said Moreland, after Maclintick had disappeared.
    ‘Do they quarrel?’
    ‘Just a bit.’
    ‘Where shall we dine?’ said Barnby. ‘Foppa’s?’
    ‘No, I lunched at Foppa’s,’ Moreland said. ‘I can’t stand Foppa’s twice in a day. It would be like going back to one’s old school. Do you know Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant? It hasn’t been open long. Let’s eat there.’
    ‘I am not sure my stomach is up to Chinese food,’ said Barnby. ‘I didn’t get to bed until three this morning.’
    ‘You can have eggs or something like that.’
    ‘Won’t the eggs be several hundred years old? Still, we will go there if you insist. Anything to save a restaurant argument. Where is the place?’
    Maclintick returned from telephoning. He bought himself a final Irish whiskey and drank it off. Conversation with his wife had been, as Moreland predicted, acrimonious. When told our destination was Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant Maclintick made a face; but he failed to establish any rival claim in favour of somewhere he would prefer to eat, so the decision was confirmed. I asked how such a recklessly hybrid name had ever been invented.
    ‘There used to be the New Casanova,’ said Moreland, ‘where the cooking was Italian and the decoration French eighteenth century – some way, some considerable way, after Watteau. Further up the street was the Amoy, called by some Sam’s Chinese Restaurant. The New Casanova went into liquidation. Sam’s bought it up and moved over their pots and pans and chopsticks, so now you can eat eight treasure rice, or bamboo shoots fried with pork ribbons, under panels depicting scenes from the career of the Great Lover.’
    ‘What are prices like?’ asked Barnby.
    ‘One might almost say cheap. On Sunday there is an orchestra of three and dainty afternoon tea is served. You can even dance. Maclintick has been there, haven’t you, Maclintick?’
    ‘Must it be Chinese food tonight?’ said Maclintick peevishly. ‘I’ve a touch of enteritis as it is.’
    ‘Remember some of the waitresses are rather attractive,’ said Moreland persuasively.
    ‘Chinese?’ I asked.
    ‘No,’ said Moreland, ‘English.’
    He laughed a little self-consciously.
    ‘Bet you’ve got your eye on one,’ said Barnby.
    I think Barnby made this remark as a matter of routine, either without bothering to consider the matter at all carefully, or on the safe assumption that no one would take the trouble to mention the fact that any given group of girls was above the average in looks without having singled out at least one of them for himself. That would unquestionably have been Barnby’s own procedure. Alternatively, Moreland may have spoken of Casanova’s on an earlier occasion, thereby giving Barnby reason to suspect there must be something special that attracted Moreland personally to the place. In any case, the imputation was not surprising, although Barnby’s own uninterrupted interest in the subject always made him perceptive where the question of a woman, or women, was concerned. However, Moreland went red at the enquiry. He was in one sense, easily embarrassed about any matter that touched him intimately; although, at the same time, his own mind moved too quickly for him to be placed long at a disadvantage by those who hoped to tease. In such situations he was pretty adept at turning the tables.
    ‘I had my eye on a girl there formerly,’ he said, ‘I admit that. It wasn’t entirely the excellent pig’s trotter soup that brought me back to Casanova’s. However, I can visit that restaurant now without a tremor – not a concupiscent thought. My pleasure in the place has become purely that of gourmet of Cathay. A