that time there it still was, in Greek Street, a few doors from
Soho Square, and almost opposite to that house where, in the
first years of the century, a little girl, and with her a boy named
De Quincey, made nightly encampment in darkness and hunger
among dust and rats and old legal parchments. The Vingtieme
was but a small whitewashed room, leading out into the street at
one end and into a kitchen at the other. The proprietor and cook
was a Frenchman, known to us as Monsieur Vingtieme; the
waiters were his two daughters, Rose and Berthe; and the food,
according to faith, was good. The tables were so narrow, and
were set so close together, that there was space for twelve of
them, six jutting from either wall.

Only the two nearest to the door, as I went in, were occupied.
On one side sat a tall, flashy, rather Mephistophelian man whom
I had seen from time to time in the domino room and elsewhere.
On the other side sat Soames. They made a queer contrast in
that sunlit room--Soames sitting haggard in that hat and cape
which nowhere at any season had I seen him doff, and this
other, this keenly vital man, at sight of whom I more than ever
wondered whether he were a diamond merchant, a conjurer, or
the head of a private detective agency. I was sure Soames
didn't want my company; but I asked, as it would have seemed
brutal not to, whether I might join him, and took the chair
opposite to his. He was smoking a cigarette, with an untasted
salmi of something on his plate and a half-empty bottle of
Sauterne before him; and he was quite silent. I said that the
preparations for the Jubilee made London impossible. (I rather
liked them, really.) I professed a wish to go right away till the
whole thing was over. In vain did I attune myself to his gloom.