d out on the proper way to both acquire and serve so rare
and toothsome a morsel as a truffle.

"Mine come by every steamer," Hodges asserted in a positive tone--not to
anybody in particular, but with a sweep of the table to attract enough
listeners to make it worthwhile for him to proceed. "My man is aboard
before the gang-plank is secure--gets my package from the chief steward
and is at my house with the truffles within an hour. Then I at once take
proper care of them. That is why my truffles have that peculiar
flavor you spoke of, Mr. Portman, when you last dined at my house. You
remember, don't you?"

Portman nodded. He did not remember--not the truffles. He recalled some
white port--but that was because he had bought the balance of the lot
himself.

"Where do they come from?" inquired Mason, the man from Chicago. He
wanted to know and wasn't afraid to ask.

"All through France. Mine are rooted near a little village in the
Province of Perigord."

"What roots'em?"

"Hogs--trained hogs. You are familiar, of course, with the way they are
secured?"

Mason--plain man as he was--wasn't familiar with anything remotely
connected with the coralling of truffles, and said so. Hodges talked on,
his eye resting first on one and then another of the guests, his voice
increasing in volume whenever a fresh listener craned his neck, as if
the information was directed to him alone--a trick of Hodges' when he
wanted an audience.

"And now a word of caution," he continued; "some thing that most of
you may not know--always root on a rainy day--sunshine spoils their
flavor--makes them tough and leathery."

"Kind of hog got anything to do with the taste?" asked Mason in all
sincerity. He was learning New York ways--a new lesson each day, and
intended to keep on, but not by keeping his mouth shut.

"Nothing whatever," replied Hodges. "They must never be allowed to bite
them, of course. You can wound a truffle as you can everything else."

Mason looked off into space and the Colonel bent his ear. Purviance's
diet had been largely drawn from his beloved Chesapeake, and "dug-up
dead things"--as he called the subject under discussion--didn't interest
him. He wanted to laugh--came near it--then he suddenly remembered how
important a man Hodges might be and how necessary it was to give him air
space in which to float his pet balloons and so keep him well satisfied
with himself.

Mason, the Chicago man, had no such scruples. He had