"Exactly."

I laughed derisively.

"For goodness' sake, don't start gargling now. This is serious."

"I was laughing."

"Oh, were you? Well, I'm glad to see you taking it in this merry spirit."

"Derisively," I explained. "I won't do it. That's final. I simply will
not do it."

"You will do it, young Bertie, or never darken my doors again. And you
know what that means. No more of Anatole's dinners for you."

A strong shudder shook me. She was alluding to her _chef_, that superb
artist. A monarch of his profession, unsurpassed--nay, unequalled--at
dishing up the raw material so that it melted in the mouth of the
ultimate consumer, Anatole had always been a magnet that drew me to
Brinkley Court with my tongue hanging out. Many of my happiest moments
had been those which I had spent champing this great man's roasts and
ragouts, and the prospect of being barred from digging into them in the
future was a numbing one.

"No, I say, dash it!"

"I thought that would rattle you. Greedy young pig."

"Greedy young pigs have nothing to do with it," I said with a touch of