Gracious living

'Basil and I will meet you at Oxford. 

Could you bring a box of Charbonel's chocolates - chiefly No.9's.

Put it down to Mother. I'll pay her.'

But Easter has forgotten them.

'Well what was to be done? 

A thousand times over would she have exchanged 

her new dressing-case 

for a brown papered parcel of chocolates.'

No matter -

'If I wire for them,' Easter thought,

'they'd be here in the morning.' 

from Mad Puppetstown by Molly Keane.

Then of course I had to know -

what flavour is a No.9?

And Victoria Leadbitter at Charbonnel et Walker

was happy to help.

It is the Café Charbonnel a coffee flavoured dark chocolate.

Is it still available and what are the other flavours?

She wrote again from her splendid address:

1 Royal Arcade,

28 Old Bond Street,

London.

'The chocolates are not really numbered anymore,' but

Many of them are still made today; 

we just tend to refer to them as their names rather than their numbers. 

Although plenty of our customers who have been shopping with us 

for many years still refer to them in numbers. 

We often receive handwritten notes

 from customers requesting boxes filled with 

certain numbers to be sent to their homes.

 We still custom fill boxes for our customers all the time. 

Customers can call, email and drop in store 

to have a box filled with whatever they prefer.

 We can keep a record of your purchase and preferred chocolates 

so you just need to give your name and ask for a repeat order.

We pride ourselves on our personal service

and remembering our customers by name.

Our most popular chocolate today 

is our Pink Marc de Champagne Truffle.

Although this one is only six years old.

Our most popular traditional chocolates are our English Rose

& Violet Creams which we have been making 

since 1875, to Madame  Charbonnel's original recipe.

As soon as the list arrives I will place my hand-written order.

The large crocodile dressing case with gold fittings from Asprey

with its legion of gold-topped boxes

 may be a superfluous accoutrement these days

but chocolates will never date.