III. HAGGIS AND BAGPIPES
Haggis should always be served with bagpipes. The reason for this will be explained later.
In our recipes we always try to give the easiest way in which our favourite dishes may be attained. The easiest way to enjoy Haggis is to enlist the assistance of a number of Scotsmen, who by tradition, training, temperament, and centuries of romantic strife have fitted themselves to prepare and eat this sovereign piece of resistance.
Make friends, therefore, with as many prominent local Scots as possible. Season the mixture by adding a few directors of some well-known Scottish steamship companies. These friendships must be cultivated gently and cannot be unduly hurried. Subscribe to the Caledonian or some other Scottish-American magazine. Eventually, if all goes well, you may be invited to a dinner of the Caledonian Club or the St. Andrews Society, or a luncheon on an Anchor Line steamship. At this dinner The Haggis will be served.
The bagpipes are for the purpose of muffling any metaphysical argument that may arise round the tables, and also to drown out any stories that begin “There was a man frae Aberdeen——”
Do not ask your neighbour at table why it is that the pipes always play the same tune. If you do, you will not be invited again. It is better to garnish the occasion with a few carefully chosen Scottish phrases—such as ’Tis a braw day the day; I’ll no can keep that appointment for three o’clock; Let the world gang tapsalteerie; Whaur’s Wullie Shaksper noo?
ADVENTURES OF A CURRICULAR ENGINEER
Having made up our mind to become an engineer, we thought it would be a mistake not to take advantage of all possible aid. We were passing the corner of Church and Fulton streets just now when we saw, in a drugstore, a fair young lady sitting in the window conducting a demonstration of Violet Rays. She wore a most appealing expression, held in her hand a glass tube with a bulbous end which was filled with pale blue electrical excitement, and was displaying various placards inviting the public to enjoy a free treatment of the Violet Ray. This Ray, her placards said, confers all imaginable pleasures and animations upon the user. It subdues inflammations and tumescences; it imparts the vigorous glow of health and beauty; it dispels lethargy and that Omar Khayyám kind of feeling that we get on a warm day in spring; it confers (so we gathered) all the benefits of Pelmanism without having to read George Creel’s little essays.