XII. The Pursuit of Fire




THERE'S PIPPINS AND CHEESE TO COME




There's Pippins and Cheese To Come


In my noonday quest for food, if the day is fine, it is my habit to shun
the nearer places of refreshment. I take the air and stretch myself. Like
Eve's serpent I go upright for a bit. Yet if time presses, there may be had
next door a not unsavory stowage. A drinking bar is nearest to the street
where its polished brasses catch the eye. It holds a gilded mirror to such
red-faced nature as consorts within. Yet you pass the bar and come upon a
range of tables at the rear.

Now, if you yield to the habits of the place you order a rump of meat.
Gravy lies about it like a moat around a castle, and if there is in you the
zest for encounter, you attack it above these murky waters. "This castle
hath a pleasant seat," you cry, and charge upon it with pike advanced. But
if your appetite is one to peck and mince, the whiffs that breathe upon the
place come unwelcome to your nostrils. In no wise are they like the sweet
South upon your senses. There is even a suspicion in you--such is your
distemper--that it is too much a witch's cauldron in the kitchen, "eye of
newt, and toe of frog," and you spy and poke upon your food. Bus boys bear