17
The Banyan
In a quiet back street some three minutes’ walk east from Piccadilly Circus, if you have curiosity enough to search diligently for it, you will see a gilded sign hanging over first-floor windows. You might puzzle for some time (always supposing you thought it worth while) before you would discover what this gilded sign was meant for. It is a banyan, and The Banyan is the name of the place at which I dined with Maxwell that night.
The place is not a club, but an eating-house, with rather a special clientèle. It’s run by a retired quarter-master, who somehow made his little pile in India. He works it with Indian servants, and caters for Anglo-Indian tastes. If ever you go there, try the fowl-curry, the chutney, and the fruit. It’s the first place where I was given a spoon fo
