“There are many things in Belgium,” said the master. “There are wines and gookeries there; also in Poland there are gooks. In England there are gooks, but not in Ameriga--only think-they-are-gooks. However, there are gooks in China. I have one, as you shall see.” Something like this at each mighty dining--and the promise had to do with the next course which Stackhouse invariably knew and served as a surprise for his guest, for he ordered his dinner with his coffee and fish in the morning. Bellair had often seen the Chinese emerge from the galley, as they came up from the dining saloon, little sparse patches of hair here and there on his fat face like willow clumps on the shore, these untouched by the razor, though his forehead was perfectly shaven to the queue circlet. This was Gookery John taking his breath after the moil and heat of the day. Stackhouse would declare that he dined just once a day, meaning this exactly. He breakfasted on a plate of fried fish with many pourings of mellow, golden and august German coffee, eating the hot fishes in his hands like crackers--a very warm and shiny hand when it was done--crisp brown fishes stripped somehow in his beard, the bones tossed overside. He liked full day with this meal. The plates were brought hot and covered to the great cane chair, until he called for them to cease. For his supper he desired outer darkness (English ale and apples, black bread from Rome that comes sewn in painted canvas like hams for the shipping, butter from Belgium packed with the care of costly cheeses, of which he was connoisseur; sauces of India, a cold chicken, perhaps, or terrapin, and an hour or two of nuts). The Japanese woman appeared at none of these services. It was the dinners, however, which bewildered Bellair most. He had not the heart utterly to condemn them, since the _Jade_ and the noble sea-air, sometimes winy and sometimes of sterile purity, kept him in that fine state of appreciation, which if he had ever known as a boy was utterly forgotten. He had initiation in curries and roasts, piquant relishes of seed and fish and flower, chowders, broiled fish and baked--until he felt the seas and continents serving their best, and learned about each in the characteristic telling of the man who lived for them. For instance when chicken was brought: “These are the birds for the Chinese to play with--yes, you would think me joking? It is not so. The little chicken-birds are kept for pets. They are not frightened to death. You do not know, berhaps, that fear and anger boisons the little birds? They are kept happy and killed quick--before they know. Many mornings they are fed from the hand and played with, until they love John of the gookeries--and one morning--so, like that--heads off--and no boison from the fear of death in our flavours. Many things you do not know--yes?” “Yes,” Bellair said.