“So have I been looking for you, my lord, and with great anxiety, but unfortunately I was deprived of the pleasure of meeting you.”
“By-the-bye, Soyer, I saw your portrait in the historical Scutari painting, by Barrett, this morning at Buckingham Palace, and I consider it an excellent likeness.”
“I am glad you think so, my lord, and for my part I consider the whole of the picture remarkably well executed. At the same time allow me to inform your lordship, that as you are so near home, I should have been very sorry to have had the pleasure of meeting you in the Park.”
“Why so, Soyer?” remarked his lordship, leaning over his charger, and still retaining my hand in his.
“Well, my lord, the reason is simple. Having so prosperously commenced my culinary campaign under your command and very kind assistance, while your lordship was Brigadier-general of Scutari, nothing could be more in accordance with my wishes than that the last page of a work which I am now about completing, in anticipation of perpetuating the style of cookery introduced by me both at Scutari and in the camp before Sebastopol, should terminate at the very threshold of your door, and while you were returning from the last national ceremony relating to the great Crimean campaign.”
“Well, upon my word, it is very remarkable; and I am happy to think, Soyer, that you have written a work upon so important and interesting a subject.”
We then parted. A few minutes had thrown a curtain over this grand military display, which will ever be remembered in history, as well as graven on the memory of man.
The Author, after his laborious campaign, in bidding adieu to his readers, does not intend to remain Soyer tranquille, as he is most anxious, after having chronicled his culinary reminiscences of the late war, to put his views into action by simple practice; and as he had no other object in writing this book, he sincerely hopes it may be the means of causing a lasting amelioration in the cooking for both army and navy, and all public institutions. Such a result to his labours, after his long culinary experience, would make the author happy indeed, and he would for the future be found as traced below.
