ags," said Owen.

"Indeed!" said my grandfather; "I'm sorry to hear that. I didn't inquire
about his character. He offered his services, saying he came from the
same part of England as myself, though I don't recollect him."

"Terrible work this blockade," said the Major after a pause. "Do you
know, if I was a general in command of a besieging army, I don't think I
could find it in my heart to starve out the garrison. Consider now, my
dear boy" (laying his forefinger on Owen's arm)--"consider now, several
thousand men with strong appetites, never having a full meal for months
together. And just, too, as my digestion was getting all right--for I
never get a nightmare now, though I frequently have the most delicious
dreams of banquets that I try to eat, but wake before I get a mouthful.
'Tis enough to provoke a saint. And as if this was not enough, the
supply of books is cut off. The _Weekly Entertainer_ isn't even an
annual entertainer to me. The last number I got was in '79, and I've
been a regular subscriber these twelve years. There's the _Gentleman's
Magazine_, too. The last one reached me a year since, with a capital
story in it, only half-finished, that I'm anxious to know the end of;
and also a rebus that I've been longing to see the answer to. 'The
answer in our next,' says the tantalising editor. It's a capital
rebus--just listen now. 'Two-thirds of the name of an old novelist,
one-sixth of what we all do in the morning, and a heathen deity, make
together a morsel fit for a king.' I've been working at it for upwards
of a year, and I can't guess it. Can you?"

"Roast pig with stuffing answers the general description," said Owen.
"That, you'll admit, is a morsel fit for a king."

"Pooh!" said my grandfather. "But you must really try now. I've run
through the mythology, all that I know of it, and tried all the old
novelists' names, even Boccaccio and Cervantes. Never were such
combinations as I have made--but can't compound anything edible out of
them. Again, as to what we do in the morning: we all shave (that is, all
who have beards)--and we yawn, too; at least I do, on waking; but it
must be a word of six letters. Then, who can the heathen deity be?"

"Pan is the only heathen deity that has anything to do with cookery,"
said Owen. "Frying-pan, you know, and stew-pan."

My grandfather caught at the idea, but had not succeeded in making
anything of it, or in approximating to the solution of the riddle, when
Ca