Eventually it was decided that I should commence this book. "What I want," said the publisher, "is a series of essays on food, a few anecdotes of stirring adventure--you have a fine flow of imagination, I understand--and a few useful, but uncommon recipes. But plenty of plums in the book, my dear sir, plenty of plums." "But, suppose my own supply of plums should not hold out, what am I to do?" "What do you do--what does the cook do, when the plums for her pudding run short? Get some more; the Museum, my dear sir, the great storehouse of national literature, is free to all whose character is above the normal standard. When your memory and imagination fail, try the British Museum. You know what is a mightier factor than both sword and pen? Precisely so. And remember that in replenishing your store from the works of those who have gone before, you are only following in their footsteps. I only bar Sydney Smith and Charles Lamb. Let me have the script by Christmas--d'you smoke?--mind the step--_good_ morning." In this way, gentle reader, were the trenches dug, the saps laid for the attack of the great work. The bulk of it is original, and the adventures in which the writer has taken part are absolutely true. About some of the others I would not be so positive. Some of the recipes have previously figured in the pages of the _Sporting Times_, the _Lady's Pictorial_, and the _Man of the World_, to the proprietors of which journals I hereby express my kindly thanks for permission to revive them. Many of the recipes are original; some are my own; others have been sent in by relatives, and friends of my youth; others have been adapted for modern requirements from works of great antiquity; whilst others again--I am nothing if not candid--have been "conveyed" from the works of more modern writers, who in their turn had borrowed them from the works of their ancestors. There is nothing new under the sun; and there are but few absolute novelties which are subjected to the heat of the kitchen fire.