“The baker’s wife lent me this; so now we can have fifteen courses if we like. This will tell us how to make a vol-au-vent à la financière, or a fricandeau de veau with sauce piquante, or——”
“But it won’t tell us how to cook a chop without burning it to a cinder, or how to boil a potato when I can’t find where they are kept,” said Annie, taking up the gridiron and turned it over thoughtfully.
“Why, I can show you what to do with that!” said he, with superiority.
And at last, after a great deal of unnecessary trouble and excitement, and after having burned their hands and scorched their faces and gone through a sort of purgatory on a hot early September afternoon, they did succeed in cooking the chops; and then Aubrey danced round them in affectionate pride, while Annie suggested that they should dine in her sitting-room, which was only on the other side of the passage.
“Oh, no,” said Aubrey; “let us have it in here, and then we can do some more cooking!”
So they pulled the kitchen-table out of range of the fire, and put bits of firewood and paper under the rickety legs, and laid the cloth and arranged the knives and forks with elaborate carefulness, and Aubrey rushed to the tap and filled a jug which they then discovered to have contained milk; and, the mania of cooking being still strong upon him, he insisted on putting the battered cheese-cakes into the oven “to revive them,” and then made buttered toast “for dessert,” to work off his culinary energy. And Annie laughed at him, and enjoyed herself very much. And then she suggested boiling some water for coffee, which she knew how to make, she said.
“Yes, because it doesn’t require any making. Everything that demands a little science falls to me,” said Aubrey, decisively, putting the kettle on the fire so that it immediately fell over on its side with a loud hiss.
However, the coffee was made at last, and of course Aubrey said it was the only time he had tasted good coffee out of Paris; and, the landlady not having yet returned, though the afternoon was drawing to a close, Annie was rising to put away some of the things, when Aubrey stopped her.
“Don’t be so wrong-headed as to save that unprincipled old lady trouble,” said he. “Besides, I dare say she will stay away till about nine o’clock, and we shall want the things again for tea.”
Annie made a grimace.