Isn't our good friend of the _P. M. G._ a little extravagant with his culinary raptures? However, we will not be outdone. If he rhapsodises the "Magnificent Mushroom," we have discovered a still more exalting theme, which, taking "whelk" as pronounced, we will call THE WITCHERY OF THE WHELK. Would you learn the divinest glory of a goddess among molluscs? Would you note the gastronomic charms of a succulent sea-nymph? Ostracise, then, from your table the blue-point impostor that foists his bearded banality on the faithful elect. Let the cult of that lusty Titan, the Limpet, sink awhile into the limbo of outworn idolatries. Forbear, if you are wise, to hymn the stern masculinity of the Mussel, gregarious demi-god but taciturn, hermetically sealed within the wilful valves of a sulky self-effacement. And let that other fakir of the sea-marge, the fantastic and Pharisaic Scallop, ply his Eleusinian rites, unrevered by the devout and metaphor-mixing epicure. Rather let it be ours to celebrate, though baldest prose were all-insufficient, the allurements of a pandemic Aphrodite, the seductive Whitechapel Whelk, and the coy grace of her sister, the wanton Winkle of Rosherville. Let us take the first--assume that the siren is yours, then consider how fitliest she shall be dressed. And here it shall be seen whether you have true chivalry and romance in your soul, or whether you grovel in mere sensual _gourmandise_. What says Master BILL NUPKINS, master-cook to the Blue Pig chop-house in Skittle-alley? Is there not an idyllic flavour of Cocaigne, a very fervour of simplicity about his spelling which goes straight to the gizzard of the whelk-worshipper? Listen to his wise counsel on whelks _à la_ Shoreditch:-- "Tyke three 'aputh of whilks, 'Erne By sort fer choice, and chuck 'em wiv a saveloy and a kipper into a sorcepan, if you can nick one from a juggins. Bile 'em till they're green, and add 'arf a glorss of unsweetened, tho it's a pity to wyste it. If toimes is 'ard, the kids and the missus can 'ave the rinsings, or go wivout. Taike my tip, and don't you be a bloomin' mug. You can blyme well stick to the juggins' sorcepan. You may, I dessay, raise arf a dollar on it." There speaks the true _gourmet_, with single-hearted straight-forward egotism, worthy of a City alderman, in all the glory of a civic banquet. To none but an artist in guttlery would that touch of genius about the kids and the missus occur. Again, disdain not the sweetly subtle recipes and romantic fancies that you may gather during your sojourn at Colney Hatch. For there, far from the dull Philistinism of house-dinners and fried-fish shops, with all wild Mænad orgies may your divinity be adored. Learn but one magic formula, and you shall see the wizard-working of your incantation, as, like an enchantress herself bewitched, she assumes you an ensorceled, faery shape. Here, mark you, is this potent spell, culled from the inspired lips of a frenzied _chef_.