That man of vast brain, with the fresh heart of a child, would have been pleased to see what I beheld; and his tender touch only could have touched it off. A bright fire was burning in a low, plain grate, there was not a whiff of smoke throughout it, and in front of the red clear glow, at a distance nicely calculated, stood a beautiful machine with its back to us. Kneeling on the rug was a long-sided man, so intent on his work that he never heard the door, with a silver spoon (once apostolic perhaps) in his right hand, and a long slender crook in his left. What he was tending could not be seen as yet; but a glorious fragrance held possession of the air, and wafted a divine afflatus to any heart not utterly insensible. Sûr Imar's broil was not a patch upon it. "Ach! it is to spoil everyting dat you are here." The artist frowned and grunted, without getting up, as Stoneman introduced me. "My name is Hopmann; but dese bairds, what will dere names be, if I interrupt?" Peeping in over the lid of the alcove, which had an enamel lining, I saw four partridges hung skilfully from hooks, with a swivel to each; so that every bird might revolve with zeal, or pause with proper feeling, as his sense of perfection and of duty bade him. While in the tray beneath them, some clear brown gravy was simmering, with a beaded eddy where the basting trickled. In and out among them, the silver spoon was gliding most skilfully and impartially, administering a drip to each, as sweetly and fairly as their own dear mother did it, in their happy nest. But instead of their dear mother, alas, it was not even an Englishman who was tending them, but a German doctor with a very red face, gazing most severely at them through big silver spectacles. "Not you look! Not you come near!" this gentleman cried, as he gave me a push, in return for the bow I offered him. "Come in here, George," said Stoneman, with a wink at me. "Let him alone, and I will tell you all about him. He is the best fellow that ever lived; but you will never get it out of his head that almost everything we do is wrong." "Everyting, everyting! Not almost, but everyting the Englishman do wrong," the Herr Doctor shouted, as Stoneman led me into the next room, where a snug supper-table was set out for the three of us.