“Then you did well to walk at this hour and on such a night,” said Mr. Long. “For myself, I can say that I have never yet faced any question that refused to be answered after a night’s walk and a night’s thoughts. And now I will place myself on a confessional level with you, by telling you before you ask—you are not so impertinent as to ask—if it be habitual with me to take a midnight walk? I will answer ‘No’ to that question, sir, and tell you that my walk was due to a certain want of confidence on my part in respect of Mr. Lambton’s excellent—too excellent French cook. I supped at Mr. Lambton’s, as I believe I mentioned?”
“Mr. Linley said you were going to Mr. Lambton’s house, sir,” said Dick.
“Oh, then you supped at the Linleys’?” said Mr. Long; “or did you merely meet Mr. Linley in the course of the night after he left me?”
“I supped with the family, sir. Mrs. Linley has had the kindness to treat me as one of the family. She expressed her regrets that you did not come to eat her pastry. She also expressed her want of confidence in Mr. Lambton’s cook.”
Mr. Long laughed.
“Our fears were not wholly groundless,” he said. “I think I made as frugal a supper as is possible in a house where a French cook possessing some determination and four new dishes reigns in the kitchen. And yet I own that an hour after supper, I—I—well, I felt that a brisk walk of a mile might at least prevent my forming an unjust judgment on the cook. On the whole, however, so far as I can gather, I am inclined to believe that Mr. Lambton’s cook is merciful as he is powerful. Neither you nor I, Mr. Sheridan, can know into what temptations to tyranny a first-class cook is led. He cannot but be conscious of his own power; and yet Mr. Lambton’s cook is, I understand, as approachable as if he were an ordinary person like one of ourselves. Nay, I have heard that some Cabinet Ministers are infinitely more frigid to their colleagues than he is to the other members of the Lambton household. There’s a man for you! And yet people say that the French nation—— But I have not asked you if Mrs. Linley’s pastry was as crisp as usual.”
“It could scarcely be surpassed, sir, even if it had been made under the superintendence of an university of cooks,” replied Dick.
“Then it was not to get rid of the thoughts impelled by your supper that you set out on your walk?” said Mr. Long. “I have heard it said that no man can be a poet who has not been subjected to a course of bad cooking. ’Tis a plausible theory. You have read the poem of the great Italian, Dante, Mr. Sheridan? Well, sir, will any one have the temerity to assert that it was not penned under the influence of a series of terrible suppers? ’Twas but one step further, you will see, from the supper to the Inferno? And there was Milton—well, he follows the Biblical account of the curse falling upon humanity owing to the indiscreet breakfast indulged in by the lady of the garden. And John Bunyan—a great poet, sir, except when he tried his hand at verse-making—his description of the terrors of that Slough of Despond was most certainly written under the influence of a dinner in Bedford gaol. But perhaps you do not think of being a poet, Mr. Sheridan?”
“I have had my dreams in that direction, sir,” said Dick, and once again he was led to hope that Mr. Long would not notice his blush. He could not understand how it was that Mr. Long succeeded in getting him to confess so much—more than he had ever confessed to another man.
“You have had your dreams, sir? I am glad to hear it. I would not give much for a lad who has not, before he is twenty, had dreams of becoming a poet. As a matter of fact, Mr. Sheridan, all men who do anything in the world are poets before they are twenty. The practical men are the men who have imagination; and to be a man of imagination is to be a poet. Now you, Mr. Sheridan, will do something in the world, I fancy.”