And Now Good-bye by James Hilton — Read

She had said the Soho restaurant was not expensive; but it was, in fact, like most Soho restaurants, cheap if you picked out the very cheapest things, but fairly expensive to the person who asked for just what he wanted. Howat, sitting down at the small table and studying the bill of fare, did not feel in any mood to make intricate mathematical calculations. He was never very competent with money; if he had been alone he would doubtless have had eggs on toast in a Lyons shop for cheapness' sake; but, on the other hand, if Lyons had grossly overcharged him he would never have noticed it. So that, though he stared hard at the items on Barroli's comprehensive list, they conveyed little to his understanding--three and six for _poulet en casserole_ seemed to him neither more nor less outrageous than a hundred pounds for a heating apparatus. Nor, apart from the prices, did he peruse very intelligently; he knew French, but to know French is not always to know the identities of dishes in a Soho restaurant owned by an Italian. Two things, however, supervened immensely above all his perceptions; he was hungry, and the world still retained its extraordinary attributes of perfection. As he gazed about he could not have conceived any restaurant pleasanter than the one whose interior surrounded him; he liked its touch of old-fashionedness, its red plush benches and baroque decorations; he liked the red-shaded table-lamp near his elbow, and the French and Italian newspapers on wooden frames that lay about; he liked the quick-moving and slightly shabby waiters, the smallness and easygoingness of the place, and the fact that at two tables nearest his own two different gentlemen were dining, the one, in full evening dress, with a lady, and the other, alone, in a very exuberant plus-fours.

In truth, it was just an average sort of place, better than some and not so good as others; its chief title to distinction, among a limited circle being an attractive kind of egg-nog made with sherry.