For instance, although I hate champagne cocktails, I always accept a couple from one particular mistress because a champagne cocktail, as anyone will tell you, gets to you where you live very fast and two such drinks enable me to ignore the grotesque schnozzle with which this particular lady has been endowed and to concentrate upon her other charms, which are of great distinction. To take other examples, there are some pubs where I just naturally order a scoop of Guiness and a ‘half ’un’ of Paddy on the side; there is one in Jersey where they always put a large whisky into a split of fresh orange-juice, ignoring the raised eyebrows of the other customers; another place where, even if I have been absent for a year, they draw me a pint of the very best bitter and lay beside it a ball-point pen because they know that I have come there to solve a crossword-puzzle. There is an Italian place in Oxford, which I used to pop into of a morning on my way home, where they are too tactful to greet me, they simply mix a massive brandy and soda and compassionately help me to fold my fingers around it.
