Uncle Mignon regretfully left the table to fetch his niece’s handkerchief, and when he returned, Cornélie sent him to find her reticule. Meanwhile, Monsieur Moulinet went into ecstasies over all that was given him to eat, exclaiming:
"You have a delicious cook, Monsieur de la Roche-Noire."
"She is a woman," said Robineau; "she is a girl of great merit; it was she who won the prize on the greased pole."
"We already know a part of her merits," said Monsieur Berlingue.
"In old days, that girl would not have remained in her kitchen," said Férulus, "Sultan Osman made a gardener who planted cabbages well a viceroy; Anthony gave a Roman citizen’s house to a cook, and Henry VIII, King of England, raised to a post of honor a scullion who had cooked a wild boar to a turn."
"Evidently," said Monsieur Berlingue in an undertone, "that fellow has sworn to make us eat ancient history."
"I have a prodigious talent in the way of cooking," said Tantignac, "although you might not think it. You may judge for yourselves. One day, three of my friends came unexpectedly to dine with me, in an isolated château where I was living; all my servants had gone out, and there were no provisions in my castle. Well! what do you suppose occurred to me? I had an old pair of leather breeches which I no longer wore, and I took it into my head to regale my friends on them; I scraped and cleaned them, put them into the kettle, and made such a delicious sauce for them, that my guests and myself made an excellent dinner!"
"I see nothing so extraordinary in that," said Edouard, who was beginning to weary of Monsieur de Tantignac’s lies; "once I entertained a friend at breakfast with old sheets of parchment stewed à la poulette."
"Oh! upon my word, monsieur," sneered the chevalier, "allow me to tell you that that is a little too much! Parchment would never digest."
"Why, monsieur," said Edouard, "I allowed you to dine on leather breeches; it seems to me that you might in return allow me to breakfast just once on parchment!"