The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, Volume 1 (of 2)Paltock, Robert
Science
The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, Volume 1 (of 2)
Paltock, Robert
Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction
Having now gone through the several kinds of my exotics, I had a mind
to re-examine them after cooling, but could make nothing of any of my
greens but the spinach. I tried several berries and nuts too, but, save
a few sort of nuts, they were all very tasteless. Then I began to review
the fruits, and could find but two sorts that I had any the least hopes
from. I then laid the best by and threw the others away. After this
process, which took me up near a whole day, and clearing my house of
good-for-nothings, I returned to reexamine my cheese, that was grown
cold, and was now so dry and hard I could not get my teeth into it; upon
which I was going to skim it away out of my grotto, saying, "Go, thou
worthless!" (for I always spoke aloud my thoughts to myself)--I say I
was just despatching it when I checked my hands, and as I could make
no impression with my teeth, had a mind to try what my knife would do.
Accordingly I began at the edge of the quarter, for I had boiled but a
quarter of it, but the rind was grown so hard and brittle that my knife
slipping and raking along the cut edge of it, scratched off some powder
as white as possible; I then scraped it backward and forward some time,
till I found it would all scrape away in this powder, except the rind,
upon which I laid it aside again for farther experiment.
During this review my kettle and ram's-horn had been boiling, till
hearing it blubber very loud, and seeing there was but little liquor in
it, I whipped it off the fire, for fear of burning its bottom, but took
no further notice of it till about two hours after; when returning
to the grotto, I went to wash out my kettle, but could scarce get my
ram's-horn from the bottom; and when I did, it brought up with it a
sort of pitchy substance, though not so black, and several gummy threads
hanging to it, drawn out to a great length. I wondered at this, and
thought the shell of the ram's-horn had melted, or some such thing,
till, venturing to put a little of the stuff on my tongue, it proved to
my thinking as good treacle as I had ever tasted.
This new discovery pleased me very much. I scraped all the sweet thing
up, and laid it near my grotto in a large leaf of one of the trees
(about two feet long, and broad in proportion) to prevent its running
about. In getting this curiosity out of my kettle, I found in it a small
piece of my cheese, which I suppose had been broke off in stirring; and
biting it (for it was soft enough) I think it was the most luscious and
delicate morsel I ever put into my lips. This unexpected good fortune
put me on trying the best of my pears again; so setting on my kettle,
with very little water, and putting some of my treacle into it, and two
of the best pears quartered, I found, upon a little boiling, they also
became an excellent dainty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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