"My friend," pursued the canon, "from this day you are mine; your conditions will be mine. I am rich; good cheer is my only passion, and for you I will not be a master, but an admirer. Never, my friend, never, have you been better appreciated. You have told me yourself you work only for art, and you prove it, for I declare openly you are the greatest master cook of the world. The miracle that you have wrought to-day, not only in restoring my appetite, but in increasing it as I tasted your masterpieces (even at this hour I feel able to enjoy another breakfast), this miracle, I say, places you outside of the line of ordinary cooks. We will never part, my dear friend; all that you ask I will grant; you can take other assistants, other subalterns, if you desire to do so. I wish to spare you all fatigue; your health is too precious to me to permit you to compromise it, for henceforth,—I feel it there," and Dom Diégo put his fat hand on his stomach,—"henceforth, I shall not know how to live without you, and—"
"So," cried the cook, interrupting the canon, and smiling with a sarcastic air, "so you have breakfasted well, my lord canon?"
"Have I breakfasted well, my dear friend! Let me tell you I owe you the enjoyment of an hour and a quarter. An inexpressible enjoyment, without intermission except when your services were interrupted, and these intermissions were filled with delight. Hovering between hope and remembrance, was I not expecting new pleasures with an insatiable longing? You ask me if I have breakfasted well! Pablo will tell you that I have wept with tenderness. That is my reply."
"I have been permitted, my lord, to send you some wines as accompaniments, because good dishes without good wines are like a beautiful woman without soul. Now, have you found these wines palatable, my lord?"
"Palatable! Great God, what blasphemy! Inestimable samples of all known nectars—palatable! Wines whose value could not be paid, if you exchanged them, bottle for bottle, with liquid gold—palatable! Come now, my dear friend, your modesty is exaggerated, as you seemed a moment ago to exaggerate your immense talent. But I recognise the fact that, if your genius should be boasted to hyperbole, there would still remain more than half untold."
"I have still more wine of this quality," said the cook, coldly; "for twenty-five years I have been preparing a tolerable cellar for myself."
"But this tolerable cellar, my dear friend, must have cost you millions?"
"It has cost me nothing, my lord."
"Nothing."
"They are all so many gifts to my humble merit."