And well she might start, for in the midst of a kind of steamy odor, like the essence of fifty kitchens of fifty hotels, added to fifty pastry cooks’ shops and fifty fruit gardens in the sun, she heard a gurgle which turned into a voice.
“Good to eat! Roasted, stewed, boiled—which shall it be?” said some one who popped out and laid a hand with such suddenness upon her shoulder that Kitty almost dropped with fright.
Apple-Pie Corner.—Page 193.
The creature who held her so tight was dressed from head to foot in white linen; he wore an apron and white cap like a French cook. He twirled a knife, and looked at Kitty with a pair of bloodshot eyes. His cheeks were purple and pendulous, his figure was flabby and fat; it suggested two suet puddings placed on the top of each other, and set upon a pair of legs. What with his pendulous cheeks and his bloodshot eyes, he reminded Kitty of an overfed pug dog.
“Indeed, I am not at all good to eat—not in any way,” said Kitty with an attempt at dignity, but in a quavering voice.
“If you’re not good to eat, then you are ready to eat. Eat or be eaten—that is all life in a nut-shell.” The creature chuckled.
Kitty felt rather nervous under the glance of his rolling red eyes, so she did not like to suggest there was something else to be done than to eat or be eaten.
“Would you please tell me,” she said politely, “where this road leads to?”
“Where to! why, to a lot of places. Apple-pie Corner—Vanilla-cream Pond—Almond-rock Valley—Barley-sugar Field—Chocolate Pavilion—lawn tennis with plum-pudding balls—”