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 chief positive idea they
have of its characteristics is that which they gather from the odour of
a French or Italian crowd of peasants at a railway station. The effect
of garlic, eaten in lumps as an accompaniment to bread and cheese, is
naturally awful, but garlic used as it should be used is the soul, the
divine essence, of cookery. The palate delights in it without being able
to identify it, and the surest proof of its charm is manifested by the
flatness and insipidity which will infallibly characterise any dish
usually flavoured with it, if by chance this dish should be prepared
without it. The cook who can employ it successfully will be found to
possess the delicacy of perception, the accuracy of judgment, and the
dexterity of hand, which go to the formation of a great artist. It is a
primary maxim, and one which cannot be repeated too often, that garlic
must never be cut up and used as part of the material of any dish. One
small incision should be made in the clove, which should be put into the
dish during the process of cooking, and allowed to remain there until
the cook's palate gives warning that flavour enough has been extracted.
Then it must be taken out at once. This rule does not apply in equal
degree to the use of the onion, the large mild varieties of which may
be cooked and eaten in many excellent bourgeois dishes; but in all fine
cooking, where the onion flavour is wanted, the same treatment which I
have prescribed for garlic must be followed."

The Marchesa gave the Colonel and Lady Considine a holiday that
afternoon, and requested Mrs. Gradinger and Van der Roet to attend
in the kitchen to help with the dinner. In the first few days of the
session the main portion of the work naturally fell upon