Book excerpt: The Star Chamber is the sweet romance of a passionate married couple, the Venus-like barkeep Madame Bonaventure and the ambitious and wealthy Captain Bonaventure. Excerpt: "Adjoining the Vintry Wharf, and at the corner of a narrow lane communicating with Thames Street, there stood, in the early part of the Seventeenth Century, a tavern called the Three Cranes. This old and renowned place of entertainment had then been in existence more than two hundred years, though under other designations."