“But what are you going to do with Brierley, who can’t enjoy his morning coffee until he has bagged half a dozen ducks on his beloved marsh?” cried Louis, tossing the stump of his cigar into the fire.
“But Monsieur Brierley is half converted already, my dear Monsieur Louis; he told me the last time I was at his bungalow that he would never kill another deer. He was before his fireplace under the head of a doe at the time—one he had shot and had stuffed. Am I not right, Monsieur Brierley?” and Lemois inclined his head toward the hunter.
Brierley nodded in assent.
“Same old game,” muttered Louis. “Had his fun first.”
“I have been a cook all my life,” continued the undaunted Lemois, “and half the time train my own chefs in my kitchen, and yet I say to you that I could feed my whole clientele sumptuously without ever spilling a drop of blood. I live in that way myself as far as I can, and so would you if you had thought about it.”
“Skimmed milk and hard-boiled eggs for breakfast, I suppose!” roared Louis in derision, “with a lettuce sandwich and a cold turnip for luncheon.”
“No, you upsidedown man! Cheese souffles, omelets in a dozen different ways, stuffed peppers, tomatoes fried, stewed, and fricasseed, oysters, clams——”
“And crabs and lobsters?” added Louis.
“Ah! but crabs and lobsters suffer like any other thing which has the power to move; what I am trying to do is to live so that nothing will suffer because of my appetite.”
“And go round looking like a skeleton in a doctor’s office! How could you get these up on boiled cabbage?” and he patted Herbert’s biceps.