Grace had never before heard food discussed by an epicure. It seemed odd that a busy man should have given so much time and thought to the formulae of the kitchen. Kemp appealed to Trenton for confirmation of his appraisement of the merits of the cooking they had enjoyed together in various parts of the country, Trenton replying in a whimsical fashion, tolerant of his friend’s enthusiasm, but letting it be known that as for himself he was much less fastidious about his food. Kemp paused in his neat, skilled carving of the turkey to deliver a lecture on green turtle soup. One might have thought that the whole progress of civilization depended on settling then and there exactly where green turtle soup attained perfection. Kemp’s insistence that the New York Yacht Club was entitled to highest honors in this particular brought from Trenton the remark that he knew a place in Kansas where the mock turtle was preferable to any other liquid food he knew.
“Heathen!” cried Kemp disdainfully.
“Let’s talk of ham and eggs,—a brain food superior to the much-boasted pie,” Trenton suggested. “There’s a boarding house in a coal mining town in Southern Colorado where a woman sets out the best ham and eggs I ever ate. I ought to know; I ate ’em three times a day for two months!”
“You’re an ostrich! If you don’t swear this is the finest turkey you ever ate I’ll tell Jerry to serve you ham and eggs and I’ll make you eat ’em.”
Grace eyed her champagne glass with the same hesitancy with which she had regarded the cocktail. She had never before seen champagne. From what she had heard and read of it she knew it to be one of the essentials of the new order of life into which she was being initiated.
“That’s the very last,” said Kemp, taking the bottle from the cooler and holding it up for their admiration. “Positively the last!”
“Same old joke!” exclaimed Irene. “Tommy’s got enough liquor hid away out here to last forty years. I’ve seen the cave he built to keep it in—there’s oceans of it!”
“A rotten exaggeration,” Kemp rejoined, thrusting the bottle back into the cooler and taking up his glass. “I haven’t enough to last me twenty.”
Irene now engaged him in a lively debate as to the merits of the wine. She pretended to a critical knowledge of vintages and after demanding to see the label expressed serious doubts as to the authenticity of the contents.
Kemp challenged her assertions; apparently the two found the greatest pleasure in taunting each other.