Encouraged by my example, my family bravely attack their skewerfuls. The schoolmaster hesitates, a victim to his fancy, which pictures the fat worms of a moment ago crawling about his plate. He picks out the smallest ones, as less likely to provoke unpleasant reminiscences. The blind man is not so much at the mercy of his imagination, gives his undivided attention to the dish before him and eats with every sign of satisfaction. All are of one opinion. The joint is juicy, tender, and very savoury. The taste reminds one a little of burnt almonds flavoured with the merest suggestion of vanilla. In short, the dish of worms is pronounced to be most agreeable, one might even say first-rate. What would it not be if the art of the ancient epicures had been lavished on its cooking! The skin alone leaves something to be desired: it is very tough. One might describe the new dish as the daintiest of force-meat, wrapped in parchment; the inside is delicious, but the outside defies the teeth. I offer it to my Cat: she refuses it, though she is very fond of sausage-skin. The two Dogs, my assiduous acolytes at dinner-time, refuse it likewise, refuse it obstinately, certainly not because of its hard texture, for their omnivorous gullets are sublimely indifferent to difficulties of deglutition. But their subtle sense of smell recognizes in the proffered morsel something unfamiliar, something absolutely unknown to all their race; and, after sniffing at it, they draw back as suspiciously as though I had offered them a mustard-sandwich. It is too new to them. They remind me of the innocent wonder of my neighbours, the women of the village, when they pass in front of the fishwives’ stalls at Orange on market-days. Here are baskets filled with Shell-fish, others with Craw-fish, others with Sea-urchins. “Eh,” they ask one another, “are those things meant to be eaten? And how? Roast or boiled? You wouldn’t catch me tackling that stuff.” And, vastly surprised that there should be people capable of making a meal off anything so loathly, they turn aside from the Sea-urchin. Even so do my Cat and my Dogs. With them as with ourselves, exceptional food needs an apprenticeship.