A deep voice answered: “I am thy master, Eustinkides.”
“Oh! sorry!” gasped the watchman, and disappeared abruptly. Whish! The hot water poured into the bath.
An hour afterwards Eustinkides lay in that bath, and soaked. As fragments of other climates slowly detached themselves from him, he thought of his penance and of his journey home. He had stopped at Delphi and put himself in communication with Zeus. “Could you tell me how to stop this curse, Mr. Zeus?” he called up the communication tube. He waited for some little time, and then a hollow voice replied:
“One pork chop and mashed. Two in order.” At this Eustinkides had at first been angry; but afterwards it seemed to him that it might be a mystery. He thought of writing to Zeus to ask for a further explanation, but there was the difficulty about the address. He felt sure it would not do to write:
——Zeus, Esq.,
Up Top, R.S.O.
So he dried himself slowly, and went into the study. As he sat there, his French cook was announced, to consult with him on the question of dinner. While they were talking, a smell came out of the kitchen and walked slowly upstairs; it was a strong young smell, but it was lazy. It lounged into the study, and sat down under the King’s nose.
“Ah!” said Eustinkides, “that is very pleasant. What is that you are cooking downstairs?”
“Pork chops for myself and the watchman,” said the cook.
In a moment the words of the oracle flashed across into the mind of Eustinkides. “I also will eat pork chops, but they must not be cut from the animal whereof my servants eat. So go out, and catch another pig, and kill him, and chop him, and cook him, and bring me the result.”
So the cook went out, and caught a butcher who was very careless, and demanded a pig. And the careless butcher remembered that he had killed a pig a month or two before, but he had entirely forgotten what he had done with it. At last he found it in the coal-cellar, and brought it to the cook. “It’s a bit dusty,” he remarked, “but that’ll all wash off.”