"Me!" he cried—"me, a wet nurse!" He yanked open another button of his smock. "Behold me! Have I the attributes?"
Leighton turned his back on him.
"Now you are ranting," he said. He picked up an old newspaper from the floor and started to wrap up the cast he had bought. "Now listen, Maître. Go and dress yourself for a change. The boy and I will spend a few hours looking for a fiacre that will stand the weight. Then we'll come back, and I'll take you out for a drive to a place where you can remind yourself what a tree looks like. I'll also give you a dinner that you couldn't order in an hour with Carême holding your hand."
"Ah, mon enfant," sighed Le Brux, folding his hands across his stomach, "thou hast struck me below the belt. Thou knowest that my memory is not so short but what I will dine with thee."
When at seven o'clock the three sat down at a table which, like everything else that came in contact with Le Brux, seemed a size too small, Leighton said to his guest:
"Maître, it has been my endeavor to provide to-night a single essence from each of the five great epochs of modern cookery."
"Yes, my child?" said Le Brux, gravely, but with an expectant gleam in his eye.
"In no branch of science," continued Leighton, "have progress and innovation been so constantly associated as in gastronomy, and we shall consequently abandon the rule of the savants of the last generation and proceed from the light to the less light and then to the rich."
"I agree," said Le Brux.
Leighton nodded to the attendant. Soup was served.