"I am going to cook," he announced, with the most engaging simplicity.
"We both stand in need of refreshment before we return to the serious
business of our interview. You see me in my cook's dress; forgive it.
There is a form in these things. I am a great stickler for forms. I have
been taking some wine. Please sanction that proceeding by taking some
wine too."

He filled a goblet of ancient Venetian glass with a purple-red liquor,
beautiful to see.

"Burgundy!" he said--"the king of wine: And this is the king of
Burgundies--Clos Vougeot. I drink to your health and happiness!"

He filled a second goblet for himself, and honored the toast by draining
it to the bottom. I now understood the sparkle in his eyes and the flush
in his cheeks. It was my interest not to offend him. I drank a little of
his wine, and I quite agreed with him. I thought it delicious.

"What shall we eat?" he asked. "It must be something worthy of our Clos
Vougeot. Ariel is good at roasting and boiling joints, poor wretch!
but I don't insult your taste by offering you Ariel's cookery. Plain
joints!" he exclaimed, with an expression of refined disgust. "Bah!
A man who eats a plain joint is only one remove from a cannibal or a
butcher. Will you leave it to me to discover something more worthy of
us? Let us go to the kitchen."

He wheeled his chair around, and invited me to accompany him with a
courteous wave of his hand.

I followed the chair to some closed curtains at one end of the room,
which I had not hitherto noticed. Drawing aside the curtains, he
revealed to view an alcove, in which stood a neat little gas-stove for
cooking. Drawers and cupboards, plates, dishes, and saucepans, were
ranged around the alcove--all on a miniature scale, all scrupulously
bright and clean. "Welcome to the kitchen!" said Miserrimus Dexter. He
drew out of a recess in the wall a marble slab, which served as a table,
and reflected profoundly, with his hand to his head. "I have it!" he
cried, and opening one of the cupboards next, took from it a black
bottle of a form that was new to me. Sounding this bottle with a spike,
he pierced and produced to view some little irregularly formed black
objects, which might have been familiar enough to a woman accustomed to
the luxurious tables of the rich, but which were a new revelation to a
person like myself, who had led a simple country life in the house of a
clergyman with small means. When I saw my host carefully lay out