for the entertainment of your friends."

Thorndyke patted me on the back playfully, but he looked uncommonly
pleased, and said, with evident sincerity, "I am really grateful to you
for saying that, for I have felt a little awkward in being so reticent
with you who know so much of this case. But you are quite right, and I
am delighted to find you so discerning and sympathetic. The least I can
do under the circumstances is to uncork a bottle of Pommard, and drink
the health of so loyal and helpful a colleague. Ah! Praise the gods!
here is Polton, like a sacrificial priest accompanied by a sweet savour
of roasted flesh. Rump steak I ween," he added, sniffing, "food meet for
the mighty Shamash (that pun was fortuitous, I need not say) or a
ravenous medical jurist. Can you explain to me, Polton, how it is that
your rump steak is better than any other steak? Is it that you have
command of a special brand of ox?"

The little man's dry countenance wrinkled with pleasure until it was as
full of lines as a ground-plan of Clapham Junction.

"Perhaps it is the special treatment it gets, sir," he replied. "I
usually bruise it in the mortar before cooking, without breaking up the
fibre too much, and then I heat up the little cupel furnace to about 600
C, and put the steak in on a tripod."

Thorndyke laughed outright. "The cupel furnace, too," he exclaimed.
"Well, well, 'to what base uses'--but I don't know that it is a base use
after all. Anyhow, Polton, open a bottle of Pommard and put a couple of
ten by eight 'process' plates in your dark slides. I am expecting two
ladies here this evening with a document."