If it be but a chop to serve up, I like it served up in a style that I can depend upon. Underdone or overdone is of less consequence, so that I know beforehand, by experience of the cook's performances, how it will be done. But this continual succession of "treasures" subjects us to a continual series of experiments.
If we don't settle soon, the office, so far as our family is concerned, will be in danger of abolition. Already has my distracted mother observed, on five different occasions, each time with deeper emphasis, "I wish it were possible to do without a cook." Yesterday, when this exclamation escaped her, my father, who, excepting in a taste for fat, is a man of very philosophical notions, caught up the note, and said, doubtingly, "My dear, do you consider it to be quite necessary to have a dinner every day!"
The last treasure we had only cooked our dinner on one day! She must have been a practitioner in some wholesale cooking establishment; cook to an ordinary on a grand scale, where dinners for a hundred and forty were daily prepared. We had to dine on cold meat for a week after she left us. You must know, that on the first day of her instalment in office, the butcher had been directed (we lived a few miles from town, and at a distance from any market-place) to send us a supply of animal food sufficient to last for about eight days. There were a leg of mutton—a saddle of mutton—a sirloin of beef—a round of beef, and various small nick-nacks for side dishes. Well, my dear credulous mother received the new cook as usual. She found her to be a most enormous treasure; and she can at this day make affidavit, if necessary, that she gave her the proper directions about the dinner. On the day the circumstance I am about to relate took place, we had merely the family at dinner. On entering the dining-room, I observed my mother gently start, as her eye encountered a great number of large dishes round the table. She, however, suppressed her astonishment, took her place at the head of the table (my father never carved), said grace, and was sinking slowly into her chair as the servant raised the first cover. My mother instantly started up, exclaiming, in a tone of alarm, and with turned-up eyes,
"Mercy on us! the leg of mutton!"
All eyes turned in a moment upon the uncovered mutton, and then on my agitated mother. The servant, after a pause, laid his hand on the second cover, upon which my mother had bent her looks. Up went the cover amidst curling wreaths of steam.
"Good gracious! look at the sirloin!" cried my mother.
We all looked accordingly at the sirloin, but without discovering in it anything peculiarly different from other sirloins.
The removal of the next cover exhibited the round of beef—another exclamation from my mother. We now all commenced staring, first, at the joints, then at my mother, and then at each other. We certainly began to think, when a fourth joint had appeared in view, that there was "something wrong." A pause ensued—my father broke it.
"In the name of wonder," said he, "what's the matter?"
"O that new cook," answered my mother, with a groan.