ow was stewed in his own stew-pot. It was the
Elderly Naval Man, you recall--the two of them being the ship's sole
survivors on the deserted island, and both of them lean with hunger--it was
the Elderly Naval Man (the villain of the piece) who "ups with his heels,
and smothers his squeals in the scum of the boiling broth."

And yet by looking on these torsos of the haberdasher, one is not brought
to thoughts of sad mortality. Their joy is so exultant. And all the things
that they hold dear--canes, gloves, silk hats, and the newer garments on
which fashion makes its twaddle--are within reach of their armless sleeves.
Had they fingers they would be smoothing themselves before the glass. Their
unbodied heads, wherever they may be, are still smiling on the world,
despite their divorcement. Their tongues are still ready with a jest, their
lips still parted for the anchovy to come.

A few days since, as I was thinking--for so I am pleased to call my muddy
stirrings--what manner of essay I might write and how best to sort and lay
out the rummage, it happened pat to my needs that I received from a friend
a book entitled "The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened." Now, before
it came I had got so far as to select a title. Indeed, I had written the
title on seven different sheets of paper, each time in the hope that by
the run of the words I might leap upon some further thought. Seven times I
failed and in the end the sheets went into the waste basket, possibly
to the confusion of Annie our cook, who may have mistaken them for a
reiterated admonishment towards the governance of her kitchen--at the
least, a hint of my desires and appetite for cheese and pippins.

"The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened" is a cook book. It is due you
to know this at once, otherwise your thoughts--if your nature be
vagrant--would drift towards family skeletons. Or maybe the domestic traits
prevail and you would think of dress-clothes hanging in camphorated bags
and a row of winter boots upon a shelf.

I am disqualified to pass upon the merits of a cook book, for the reason
that I have little discrimination in food. It is not that I am totally
indifferent to what lies on the platter. Indeed, I have more than a tribal
aversion to pork in general, while, on the other hand, I quicken joyfully
when noodles are interspersed with bacon. I have a tooth for sweets, too,
although I hold it unmanly and deny it as I can. I am told also--although
I resent i