LUNCHEON ON THE RUN

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 151, 23 December 1929, Page 14

LUNCHEON ON THE RUN

CAFE WHERE NO ONE SITS

PLACE OF PERFECT TRUST

Within this city (London) of countless cafes I have discovered the place of perfect trust, writes James Dunn, in the "Daily Mail." Near the General Post Office there is a cafe where there is no bill of fare and no bill of payment, no waiters or waitresses; only a staunch belief in human honesty tempered by human appetite that revived my respect for the business men and my admiration for Scottish character.

Stockbrokers, merchants, bankers, men who are so busy making money that they eat their luncheon on the run, as it were, crowd this remarkable cafe and make deals between bites. I have to-day seen a large, prosperous-looking man with a stick of celery in one hand and a piece of cake in the other nod acceptance of an offer involving thousands of pounds from another who talked between mouthfuls of Irish stew.

Into this cafe of perfect trust came scores of men at the double. Nobody sat down. The sandwich snatchers mingled with the hot-plate chasers in a food "scrum." _ There were as many varieties of sandwiches as there were customers, and all the' same price—threepence. On the hot-plate was a selection of roasts and stews, and it was a strangely thrilling sight to see grave men walking about the place holding a plate in one hand and working knife and fork in the other like Chinese chop-sticks. When a man had eaten his fill he walked up to a pay-desk and . mentioned a sum; that sum he paid and then dashed out to make more money. THE SANDWICH KING. The price o£ the noc-stop luncheon, I noticed, rarely exceeded eighteenpence, but I found the Sandwich King. He was a small, thin man, with a hungry eye. He declared 3s Bd, which meant that he had consumed 14 sandwiches and a glass of milk in less than 15 minutes. The queue of customers passing the cashier's desk resembled a human adding machine—"ls 4d, Is Bd, Is Id, Is 6d, 2s, and Is 3d." And these were men who could afford the lunch of Lucullus! They were not so much saving money as saving time, and they worked while they ate. Glasgow is famous for its shops and cafes and there is enough tea drunk in the city's tea shops in an afternoon to float a steamer. The minutes saved by Glasgow business men at luncheon time are used by their wives and daughters at tea time.

Scottish men and women are the world's champion cake-makers and cakeeaters. There are cakes in Glasgow that have never been smuggled over the Border; rare cakes, precious cakes, cakes that have the "kick" of cocktails and the balra of old wine.

Porridge may be the nourishment of a Scotsman, but cakes are his inspiration.