"A cook," he observed, didactically, "is far above the menial class. He is an artist, and entitled to the same respectful consideration which might be shown a sculptor, painter, poet, or musician. More, in fact, because a cook ministers, not only to our æsthetic sense and intellectual demands, but to the physical as well. In substantiation of these statements, I am about to offer you an entrée made this morning by my own hands ... ah..." The peroration was cut short by the entrance of the steward bearing the gastronomic chef-d'œuvre, which was in the form of a vol-au-vent, or chicken-pie. At first glance, the dish appeared to be highly successful. The crust was brown and flaky, and seemed to promise succulent delicacies within. After the first anxious glance, Captain Bell sank back into his chair and looked about with the benevolent expression of one about to confer a rare treat upon his friends. The steward, struggling manfully with his grin, presented the dish to Cécile, who proceeded to attack it with a blunt knife. The crust sagged like the head of a slack drum, but refused to give up its dead. Cécile exerted a little more pressure. The crust held valiantly, while certain unhallowed gurglings came from beneath. Everybody was watching Cécile with that painful anxiety peculiar to such moments. Bell began to fidget. "Cut into it..." he snapped. "The chicken ain't goin' to bite you." The popular tension found relief in a laugh at this witticism. Bell glared, and the ill-timed mirth subsided. Cécile threw her solid weight upon the knife. It bent, and a tiny jet of juice found its exit, hitting Mr. Poole in the eye. He wiped it furtively, and the others pretended not to have observed the accident. "Briggs, give me a pointed knife," said Cécile. "Of course..." growled Bell. "Always serve a pointed knife with a pastry." The perspiring Briggs fetched the desired weapon. Thus armed, Cécile successfully attacked the crust, which she flayed back as one might skin an animal. She helped herself daintily, and the dish was passed to Wood, all eyes watching him as though he were about to draw in any other lottery. Politic youth that he was, Wood helped himself generously, when there rolled out of the gravy upon his plate, a small, kitchen salt-cellar. "Thunderation!" snapped the host, "so that's where it went. I hunted half an hour for that thing...." "Papa..." protested Cécile. Nobody else could speak, and the faces around the board were crimson. Their host was known by his guests to take himself very seriously. Wood tried again, this time exhuming what appeared to be a misshapen piece of rubber, but which a clever comparative anatomist might have recognised as the sacrum of a fowl with its muscular attachments.