“Yes, my Lord. I fear my visit has been too long.”
“No, not at all—this is rather a quiet day, and before you go I wish you would be kind enough to look at my kitchen.”
“I shall be most happy to do so.”
“Do you know my cook?—his name is Armand—he is not a cordon bleu, but he is a good man, and does his best with what he can get.”
“The French proverb à la guerre comme à la guerre is very applicable to the circumstances—nay, rather too much so to permit one to hope to obtain a good dinner.”
“Very true,” said Lord Raglan; “and we are really so tired of those preserved meats.”
“Indeed; but some of them are not bad.”
“The great fault is, that the meat is always overdone. How do you account for that, Monsieur Soyer?”
“If it were not so, they would not keep. When I was sent for to Deptford to report upon Golding’s preserved meats—which, no doubt, your lordship recollects——“
“I do, indeed; they were too bad to be forgotten.”