“You have no kitchenette here, have you?” I protested. “Or do we devour them raw? Oh, I see, you have a camp oven. How ingenious!”
He had put on the table a large tin box. With complete seriousness he now produced a small spirit lamp, over which he fitted a little basket of fine wire mesh. When the flame of the lamp was lit, it played upon the basket, which was supported by legs at just the right height. He now put the unsuspecting guinea pigs into the tin box, which was shaped like a rural-free-delivery letter-box, with a hinged door opening at one end. He took the spirit lamp with its attached basket and pushed the contraption carefully into the box with the pigs. Then he opened both windows in the room.
“Admirable!” I exclaimed. “Like those much-advertised cigarettes, they will be toasted. But won't it take a long time?”
“Don't be an ass,” he said.
He went to his desk, and took out the tin of Cartesian Mixture he had snatched away from me earlier in the evening.
“Your mention of those cigarettes is apt,” he said, “for in this case also the fuel is tobacco. Please go over by the window, and stay there.”
I watched, somewhat impressed by the gravity of his manner. From the tin of tobacco he took a small pinch of mixture and carefully placed it in the mesh basket above the lamp. Reaching into the box, he lit the wick of the lamp with a match, and hastily clapped to the hinged lid. The guinea pigs seemed to be awed by these proceedings, for they remained quiet. Dulcet joined me at the window, and remarked that fresh air was a fine thing.
We waited for about five minutes, while the guinea-pig oven stood quietly on the table.
“Well,” said Dulcet, finally, “we ought to be able to see whether it rhymes or not.”
He snatched open the door of the tin box, and skipped away from it in a way that seemed to me perfectly insane. He picked up a pair of tongs from the fireplace, and standing at a distance, lifted out the lamp. The tobacco was smoking strongly in its mesh basket. Holding the lamp away from him with the tongs, he carried it into the bathroom, and I heard him turn on the water. Then, coming back, he inserted the tongs into the tin box, and gingerly withdrew first one guinea pig and then the other. Both were calm as possible, quite dead. Looking over the sill to see that the pavement was clear, he threw the tin box into the street, where it fell with a crash.