"'"I'll make a capital one out of three pieces of this wood, with the aid of string. I think this fire will light now. It is beautifully designed and excellently built. I am a connoisseur in fires. I have been accused of resorting to bludgeon tactics. But I don't care what they may call my tactics, they always succeed. First you get a few pieces of paper--if they are greasy, all so much the better--and you roll them up loosely, as I did the piece that came round the rashers. Then you put on as much wood as you judge sufficient, taking care to cross-hatch the pieces, as an artist would say. Then put on more wood loosely until you think there is too much. After that put on more wood until you are perfectly sure there is too much. When you have done this, lay on eight pieces of coal neither larger nor smaller than a bantam's egg, and upon these eight lay three pieces as big as a turkey's egg. After that set fire to your paper, as I do. I will now, while the fire is kindling and clearing, make our toasting-fork."
"'He rose from his knees before the grate, and proceeded to splice two thin pieces of firewood, one on either side of a thick piece, having first cut a slanting bit out of the ends of the thinner ones where he applied them to the thick one. These prongs he had only to sharpen.
"'While De Montmorency was engaged in making his toasting-fork, Belmore, attracted by the unfamiliar blaze and glow in that chill room, drew the soap-box to the fire, and sat down to enjoy the heat.
"'Nothing ages a man more quickly than cold and hunger, and as Belmore sat before the mounting flames he looked seventy.
"'"There is no fender," said De Montmorency; "but I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll put the tea-pot down on the ground, take the lid off, and put a saucer on the top of the teapot. That will make a capital gravy-dish to catch the rich nectar from the rashers.'
"'All this time Belmore never moved or spoke. With his thin hands hanging down over big knees, he simply gave himself to the animal enjoyment of warmth, a pleasure he had not known for a long time.
"'At last the toasting began; and now, for the first time, the attention of Belmore was withdrawn from the fire to be concentrated on the food. He had tasted food since he had felt the heat of a fire, but that food had been the simplest and most scanty. Convicts would have mutinied if they had been kept on such a scale as the poor gentleman had been obliged to adopt for a month; that is, if convicts, after a month of such diet, would have had strength enough to lift up their hands in menace.
"'At length the first piece of bacon was toasted. With a large pocket-knife De Montmorency cut off a slice of bread from a loaf, which had formed one of the parcels he had brought in; and having placed this on the chair-table, he removed everything else. Then he took up the saucer from the fire and put that on the table, and dropped the hissing crisp bacon into the rich straw-coloured gravy. He poured some gin out of the bottle into a cup, and added water from a jug.
"'"You go on and eat now," the visitor said; "I'll cook and serve, and will naturally wait. I'll make a gravy-dish of a slice of bread this time. You don't object to a slice of bread soaked in red-hot dripping of toasted bacon? Of course you don't. I should like to see the man with a wholesome appetite who did. Pretend the bacon is fish, and that we have lent our fish-forks to the bishop who lives on the landing below this, and that you have to eat your fish with a fork and a piece of bread, and then all you've got to do is to fancy my knife is an old-fashioned fork, and there is nothing more to be desired."
"'As Belmore had cut off the first piece of bacon and was raising it to his lips, someone knocked at the door. Belmore put down the bit untasted, and said, in a tremulous voice: "De Montmorency, will you ask him to leave me in peace, or tell me I must go? Ask him to spare me or send me away."