"That's good, that is, veal and spinach. I'll try it," said Mr. Dundyke.
He helped himself plentifully, and, pushing the dish to his wife, voraciously took the first mouthful, for he was fearfully hungry.
It was a rash proceeding. What in the world had he got hold of! Veal and spinach!—Heaven protect him from poison! It was some horrible, soft compound, sharp and sour; it turned him sick at once, and set his teeth on edge. He became very pale, and called faintly for the waiter.
But the garçon had long ago whisked off to other parts of the room, and there was Mr. Dundyke obliged to sit with that nauseous mystery underneath his very nose.
"Waiter!" he roared out at length, with all the outraged dignity of a common-councilman, "I say, waiter! For the love of goodness take this away: it's only fit for pigs. There's a dish there, with two little ducks upon it, and some carrots round 'em—French ducks I suppose they are: an Englishman might shut up shop if he placed such on his table. Bring it here."
"Plait-il, monsieur?"
"Them ducks—there—at the top, by the pickled cowcumbers. I'll take one."
The waiter ranged his perplexed eyes round and round the table. "Pardon, monsieur, plait-il?"
"I think you are an idiot, I do!" roared out Mr. Dundyke, unable to keep both his hunger and his temper. "That dish of ducks, I said, and it is being seized upon! They are tearing them to pieces! they are gone! Good Heavens! are we to famish like this?"
The waiter, in despair, laid hold of a slice of melon in one hand and the salt and pepper in the other, and presented them.