s drink his
health. Now, Digby, I call this something very nigh perfection."

It was a theme my tutor understood thoroughly, and there was not a dish
nor a wine that he did not criticise.

"I was always begging your father to take this cook, Digby," said
he, with half sigh. "Even with a first-rate artist you need change,
otherwise your dinners become manneristic, as ours have become of late."

He then went on to show me that the domestic cook, always appealing to
the small public of the family, gets narrowed in his views and bounded
in his resources. He compared them, I remember, to the writers in
certain religious newspapers, who must always go on spicing higher and
higher as the palates of their clients grow more jaded. How he worked
out his theme afterwards I cannot tell, for I was watching the windows
of the house, and stealing glances down the alleys in the garden,
longing for one look, ever so fleeting, of my lovely partner of the
night before.

"I see, young gentleman," said he, evidently nettled at my inattention,
"your thoughts are not with me."

"How long have we to stay, sir?" said I, reverting to the respect I
tendered him at my lessons.

"You have thirty-eight minutes," said he, examining his watch: "which I
purpose to apportion in this wise,--eight for the douceur, five for the
cheese, fifteen for the dessert, five for coffee and a glass of curacoa.
The bill and our parting compliments will take the rest, giving us three
minutes to walk across to the station."

These sort of pedantries were a passion with him, and I did not
interpose a word as he spoke.

"What a pineapple!" cried a young fellow from an adjoining table, as
a waiter deposited a magnificent pine in the midst of the bouquet that
adorned our table.

"Monsieur Delorme begs to say, sir, this has just arrived from Laeken."

"Don't you know who that is?" said a companion, in a low voice; but my
hearing, ever acute, caught the words, "He's that boy of Norcott's."
I started as if I had received a blow. It was time to resent these
insolences, and make an end of them forever.

"You heard what that man yonder has called me?" said I to Eccles.

"No; I was not minding him."

"The old impertinence,--'That boy of Norcott's.'"

I arose, and took the cane I had laid against a chair. What I was about
to do I knew not. I felt I should launch some insolent provocation. As
for what should follow, the event might decide _that_.

"I'd not mind hi