nt money to have
a due number of masses said on San Salvatore for the repose of the
soul of her young husband. So once a week, whilst the contract ran,
the old priest made his way up through the morning mist, tolled the
bell, said the mass, and thereafter comforted himself with a
voluminous pipe seated on the dresser in G.'s kitchen.

This is a digression, and I confess I have rather lingered over it,
as it kept the soup waiting.

The preparation was brought in in a neat white bowl gracefully
carried aloft by G., who still insisted upon going about with a
napkin under his arm. Everything was in order except the soup. I
like to think that the failure may have been entirely due to myself.
G. had proposed quite a dozen soups, and I had ignorantly chosen
the only one he could not make. The liquid was brown and greasy,
smelling horribly of a something which in recognition of G.'s good
intention I will call butter. The rice, which formed a principal
component part, presented itself in conglomerate masses, as if G.,
before placing it in the tureen, had squeezed portions of it in his
hand.

Perhaps he had, for he was not in the humour to spare himself trouble
in his effort to make the banquet a success.

We helped ourselves plentifully to the contents of the tureen, which
was much easier to do than to settle the disposition of the soup. G.
was in an ecstasy of delight at things having gone on so well thus
far. He positively pervaded the place, nervously changing the napkin
from arm to arm, and frantically flicking off imaginary crumbs. At
length it happily occurred to him that it would be well to go and
see after the cutlets. Whereupon we emptied the soup back into the
tureen, and when G. returned were discovered wiping our lips with
the air of people who had already dined.

After all, there were the cutlets, and G. had not indulged in
exaggerated approval of their excellence when in a state of nature.
They were those dainty cuts into which veal naturally seems to
resolve itself in butcher's shops on the Continent. We observed
with concern that they looked a little burned in places when they
came to the table, and the same attraction of variety was maintained
in the disposition of salt. There were large districts in the area
of the cutlet absolutely free from savouring. But then you came upon
a small portion where the salt lay in drifts, and thus the average
was preserved. We were very hungry and ate the cutlets, which,