"Veal, with the possible exception of Lombard beef, is the best
meat we get in Italy," said the Marchesa, "so an Italian cook, when
he wants to produce a meat dish of the highest excellence,
generally turns to veal as a basis. I must say that the breast of
veal, which is the part we had for lunch today, is a somewhat
insipid dish when cooked English fashion. That we have been able
to put it before you in more palatable form, and to win for it the
approval of such a connoisseur as Sir John Oglethorpe, is largely
owing to the judicious use of that Italian terror--more dire to
many English than paper-money or brigands--garlic."

"The quantity used was infinitesimal," said Mrs. Sinclair, "but it
seems to have been enough to subdue what I once heard Sir John
describe as the pallid solidity of the innocent calf."

"I fear the vein of incongruity in our discourse, lately noted by
Van der Roet, is not quite exhausted," said Sir John. "The Colonel
was up in arms on account of a too intimate association of his name
with pepper, and now Mrs. Sinclair has bracketed me with the calf,
a most useful animal, I grant, but scarcely one I should have
chosen as a yokefellow; but this is a digression. To return to our
veal. I had a notion that garlic had something to do with the
triumph of the Tenerumi, and, this being the case, I think it would
be well if the Marchesa were to give us a dissertation on the use
of this invaluable product."

"As Mrs. Sinclair says, the admixture of garlic in the dish in
question was a very small one, and English people somehow never
seem to realise that garlic must always be used sparingly. The