It was the Professorial Butler who made this announcement with a solemn and significant bow. He had undertaken, for the modest fee of half-a-crown, to throw my four guests,--an Epicurean Duke, a couple of noted Diners-out, and a Gourmand of a high order well known in Society,--into a profound hypnotic sleep, under the influence of which, while supplied with a few scraps of food, and slops by way of drink, they were to believe that they were assisting at a most _recherché_ repast, provided by a _cuisine_, and accompanied by choice vintage wines, both of the first excellence. I felt a little nervous as we proceeded to the dining-room, but as the Professor adroitly passed his hand over the head of each as he descended the stairs, and pointed out to me the dazed and vacant look that had settled on the features of all of them, I felt reassured, especially when they fell mechanically into their places, and began to peruse, with evident delight, the contents of the _Menu_, which ran as follows:-- SOUP. Toast-and-water and Candle-ends. FISH. Herrings' Heads and Tails. Counter Sweepings. ENTREMETS. Rotten Cabbage-stalks. ENTRÉE. Odds and Ends of Shoe Leather. ROAST. Cat's Meat. SWEET. Old Jam-pot Scrapings on Musty Bread. That they didn't all rise like one man with a howl of execration on reading this was soon explained when the Professorial Butler set down a soup-plate before the Epicurean Duke and with an insinuating smile, simply announced it as _Tortue claire_. It was clear from this that they were under the impression that they were partaking of a first-class little dinner, and had read the _Menu_ at the will of the Professorial Butler, as he subsequently explained to me in such fashion that the toast-and-water soup, in which the candle-ends played the part of green fat, appeared to them in the light of the finest "clear turtle." "And how about the Herrings' Heads and Tails?" I asked. "They take that for _Saumon de Gloucester, sauce Pierre Le Grand_," was the bland reply, a fact which at that moment the Gourmand endorsed, by smacking his lips and with an ejaculation of "Sublime salmon that! I'll take a little more," holding out his plate for a second helping. The Cabbage-stalks figured in their imagination as "_Asperges d'Italie, en branches glacées à la Tour d'Amsterdam_," while the pennyworth of plain cat's meat, passed more than muster as "_Filet de B[oe]uf en Diplomat, braisée à la Prince de Pékin_." The Shoe-leather and Jam-pot Scrapings brought the Menu to a triumphant close, with "_Ris de Veau pralinée au boucles Menschikoff_," and "_Bombardes Impérials de Péru_" respectively.