sible, that the precious honey-cake might undergo
that subtle change which only comes with time.

[Illustration: Pots were set away in the coolest part of the cellar 208]

For at least a year must pass before the honey-cake really can be said
to be good at all; and the longer that it remains in the pots, even
until five-and-twenty years, the better does it become. Therefore it is
that all makers of lebkuchen who aspire to become famous professors of
the craft add each year to their stock of honey-cake, yet draw always
from the oldest pots a time-soaked dough that ever grows more precious
in its sweet excellence of age. Thus large sums--more hundreds of
dollars than a young baker, just starting upon his farinaceous career,
would dare to dream of--may be invested; and the old rich bakers who can
dower their daughters with many honey-pots know that in the matter of
sons-in-law they have but to pick and choose.

It was about Christmas-time--which is the proper time for this
office--that Gottlieb made his first honey-cake; and it was a little
before the Christmas following that his first lebkuchen was baked. For
a whole week before this portentous event occurred he was in a nervous
tremor; by day he scarcely slept; as he sat beside the oven at night his
pipe so frequently went out that twice, having thus lost track of time,
his baking of bread came near to being toast. And when at last the
fateful night arrived that saw his first batch of lebkuchen in the oven,
he actually forgot to smoke at all!

Gottlieb had but a sorry Christmas that year. The best that even
Aunt Hedwig could say of his lebkuchen was that it was not bad. Herr
Sohnstein, to be sure, brazenly declared that it was delicious; but
Gottlieb remembered that Herr Sohnstein, who conducted a flourishing
practice in the criminal courts, was trained in the art of romantic
deviations from the truth whenever it was necessary to put a good face
on a bad cause; and he observed sadly that the notary's teeth were at
variance with his tongue, for the piece of lebkuchen that Herr Sohnstein
ate was infinitessimally small. As for the regular German customers of
the bakery, they simply bit one single bite and then refused to buy.
Indeed, but for the children from St. Bridget's School--who, being
for the most part boys, and Irish boys at that, presumably could eat
anything--it is not impossible that that first baking of lebkuchen
might have remained uneaten even until this pr