obviously the heirs of the ages, and the inheritors of European
culture, used frequently to discuss these books in Paff's
beer-cellar."

"Well, but does the indecency of this word 'eating' evaporate out of
it as the years pass, so that the word is hurtful only when very
freshly written!"

The mummy blinked so wisely that you would never have guessed that the
brains and viscera of all these mummies had been removed when the
embalmers, Time and Conformity, were preparing these fifty for the
Academy of Starch and Fetters. "Young man, I doubt if the majority of
us here in the academy are deeply interested in this question of
eating, for reasons unnecessary to specify. But before estimating your
literary pretensions, I must ask if you ever frequented Paff's
beer-cellar?"

Horvendile said, "No."

Now this mummy was an amiable and cultured old relic, unshakably made
sure of his high name for scholarship by the fact that he had written
dozens of books which nobody else had even read. So he said,
friendlily enough: "Then that would seem to settle your pretensions.
To have talked twaddle in Paff's beer-cellar is the one real proof of
literary merit, no matter what sort of twaddle you may have written in
your book, or in many books, as I am here in this academy to attest.
Moreover, I am old enough to remember when cookery-books were sold
openly upon the newsstands, and in consequence I am very grateful to
the garbage-man, who, in common with all other intelligent persons,
has never dreamed of meddling with anything I wrote."