Rodney Stone by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — Read

IT was at the end of my first week in London that my uncle gave a supper / to the fancy, as was usual for gentlemen of that time if they wished to / figure before the public as Corinthians and patrons of sport. He had / invited not only the chief fighting-men of the day, but also those men of / fashion who were most interested in the ring: Mr. Fletcher Reid, Lord Say / and Sele, Sir Lothian Hume, Sir John Lade, Colonel Montgomery, Sir Thomas / Apreece, the Hon. Berkeley Craven, and many more. The rumour that the / Prince was to be present had already spread through the clubs, and / invitations were eagerly sought after.

The Waggon and Horses was a well-known sporting house, with an old / prize-fighter for landlord. And the arrangements were as primitive as / the most Bohemian could wish. It was one of the many curious fashions / which have now died out, that men who were _blasé_ from luxury and high / living seemed to find a fresh piquancy in life by descending to the / lowest resorts, so that the night-houses and gambling-dens in Covent / Garden or the Haymarket often gathered illustrious company under their / smoke-blackened ceilings. It was a change for them to turn their backs / upon the cooking of Weltjie and of Ude, or the chambertin of old Q., and / to dine upon a porter-house steak washed down by a pint of ale from a / pewter pot.