And to begin with, it was a little burnt. There was a large hole in the encircling handkerchief, and the bottom of the pudding was black. Considering the bulk of the pudding, this had really very little effect; but it prejudiced the others, and the artist has to be so tactful with his public.
And then the pudding itself. Well, if we had not had the stew first, I am sure we should have all enjoyed it; but coming as it did on the top of a heavy dinner, even Barron and myself were hard driven to finish it. And it was only self-respect that made us. The others took a spoonful or two and desisted. Barron and I struggled manfully to the end, and were then conscious of four steely pairs of eyes. Evans, who acted as a sort of mess president, was the first to speak.
“What did you two use to make this pudding?”
“Oh, nothing much,” I said, in an offhand way; “a little cocoa, a little treacle, a little cornflour.” Somehow I felt I could not confess to the dripping.
“But how much did you use?”
Barron must be a braver man than I am, or it may have been he was still feeling a little sore because the salmon paste had not been included; at any rate he went straight to the point.
“A tin of each.”
There was a general consternation. That a whole tin of treacle, half a tin of dripping, a complete packet of cocoa, had all gone to a pudding that only a third of the mess had been able to eat at all ... it was unbelievable, a gross case of misplaced trust, perfidy could go no further.
Barron and myself were not popular that evening. But our peccadilloes bore fruit later. That chocolate soufflé served the purpose of a climax. From that day onward it was implicitly understood that no cook should invent recipes for puddings.