Greenwich Dinners
The Hon. Grantley Berkeley, in his Life and Recollections, relates some amusing anecdotes of these pleasant gatherings:—
“On two occasions,” he says, “I remember that the late Lord Rokeby went to Greenwich behind a pair of posters, and that in coming back the postboy, excessively drunk, upset him on the road. He was much too good-natured to insist on the man’s discharge, and, perhaps because he liked a glass of wine himself, he was inclined to forgive a lad overcome by porter; so the carriage was righted and no notice taken of the matter. It so happened that some time after, Lord Rokeby had again to go to Greenwich, and when his carriage and pair of posters came to the door, he saw in the saddle the same postboy who had brought him to grief.
“‘Oh, you’re there, are you?’ he said, in that dear, good-natured way he had of speaking. ‘Now mind, my good fellow, you had your jollification last time; it’s my turn now, so I shall get drunk, and you must keep sober.’
“The postboy touched his hat in acquiescence with this reasonable proposition; he brought back my friend in safety, at all events, and, I dare say, in a very happy state of mind.”
The writer also remembers a dinner at the Ship, where there were a good many ladies, and when D’Orsay was of the party, during which his attention was directed to a centre pane of glass in the bay window over the Thames, where some one had written in large letters with a diamond, D’Orsay’s name in improper conjunction with a celebrated German danseuse then fulfilling an engagement at the Opera. With characteristic readiness and sang-froid, he took an orange from a dish near him, and making some trifling remark on the excellence of the fruit, tossed it up once or twice, catching it in his hand again. Presently, as if by accident, he gave it a wider cant, and sent it through the window, knocking the offensive words out of sight into the Thames.