However, Doubleday, who seemed to have an eye for everybody, soon put me at my ease with myself and the rest.
What a meal it was! I hadn't tasted such a one since I came to London.
Eggs and sardines, lobster and potted meat; coffee and tea, toast, cake, bread-and-butter--it was positively bewildering.

And the laughing, and talking, and chaffing that went on, too.

Doubleday perfectly astonished me by his talents as a host.

He never ceased talking, and yet everybody else talked too; he never ceased partaking, and took care that no one else should either.

He seemed to know by the outside of a cup whether it was full or empty, and to be able to see through loaves and dish- covers into everybody's plate.