Now, it so happened that early in the day the major had been out for a long walk, and had come upon a magnificent cluster of a fungus that he had not yet tried for its edible qualities. It was the peculiar grey-brown, scaly-topped mushroom, called by botanists Amanita Rubescens, and said to be of admirable culinary value.
“We’ll have a dish of these to-night,” thought the major, picking a fair quantity of the choicest specimens, which he took home and gave to the butler, with instructions to hand them to the cook for a dish in the second course.
Morris, the butler, put the basket down upon the hall table, and went to see to the drawing down of a window blind; and no sooner had he gone than Rolph, who had heard the order, came from the billiard-room into the hall to get his hat and stick preparatory to starting for a walk.
He was passing the major’s basket where it stood upon the hall table, when an idea flashed across his brain, and he stopped, glanced round, grinned, and then, as no one was near, took up the creel, walked swiftly across the hall out into the garden, dived into the plantation, ran rapidly down the long walk out of sight of the house, and turned into the pheasant preserve. Here, throwing out the major’s fungi, he looked sharply about and soon collected an equal quantity of the first specimens he encountered, and then turned back.
“A sarcastic old humbug,” he muttered; “let him have a dish of these, and if any of them disagree with him, it will be a lesson for the old wretch. He experimented upon me once with his confounded boleti, as he called them; now, I’ll experimentalise upon him.”
As a rule such an act as this could not have been performed unseen, but fate favoured the captain upon this occasion, and he reached the hall without being noticed, replaced the creel upon the table from which he had taken it, and then went for a walk.
Now, it so happened that Morris, the butler, had crossed the hall since, but the creel not being where he had placed it, he did not recall his orders; but going to answer a bell half-an-hour afterwards, he caught sight of the basket, remembered what he had been told, and, on his return, took the fungi into the kitchen.
“Here, cook,” he said, “you’re to dress these for the second course.”
In due time cook, who was a very slow-moving, thoughtful woman, found herself by the basket which she opened, and then turned the fungi out upon a dish.
“Well,” she exclaimed, “of all the trash! Mrs Mason, do, for goodness’ sake, look at these.”