"Palatable! Great G.o.d, what blasphemy! Inestimable samples of all known nectars--palatable! Wines whose value could not be paid, if you exchanged them, bottle for bottle, with liquid gold--palatable! Come now, my dear friend, your modesty is exaggerated, as you seemed a moment ago to exaggerate your immense talent. But I recognise the fact that, if your genius should be boasted to hyperbole, there would still remain more than half untold."

"I have still more wine of this quality," said the cook, coldly; "for twenty-five years I have been preparing a tolerable cellar for myself."

"But this tolerable cellar, my dear friend, must have cost you millions?"

"It has cost me nothing, my lord."

"Nothing."

"They are all so many gifts to my humble merit."

"I am by no means astonished, my dear friend, but what are you going to do with this cellar, which is rich enough to be the envy of a king? Ah, if you desired to surrender to me the whole, or a part of it, I would not hesitate to make any sacrifice for its possession; because, as you have just said with so much significance, good dishes without good wines are like a beautiful woman without soul. Now, these wines accompany your productions so admirably that--I--"

The cook interrupted Dom Diego with a sarcastic, sneering laugh.

"You laugh, my friend?" said the canon, greatly surprised. "You laugh?"

"Yes, my lord, I laugh."

"And at what, my friend?"

"At your grat.i.tude to me, my lord canon."

"My friend, I do not understand you."

"Ah, Lord Dom Diego! you believe that your good angel--and I picture him to myself, fat and chubby, dressed as I am, like a cook, and wearing pheasant wings on the back of his white robe!--ah, you believe, I say, my lord canon, that your good angel has sent me to you!"

"My dear friend," said Dom Diego, stretching his large eyes, and feeling very uncomfortable on account of the cook's sardonic humour, "my dear friend, I pray you, explain yourself clearly."

"My lord canon, this day will prove a fatal one for you."

"Great G.o.d! what do you say?"

"My lord canon!" replied the cook, his arms crossed and his eyes fixed in a threatening manner on the canon.

And he took a step toward Dom Diego, who recoiled from him with an expression of pain.

"My lord canon, look at me well."

"I--I--am looking at you," stammered Dom Diego, "but--"

"My lord canon, my face shall pursue you everywhere, in your sleep and in your waking hours! You shall see me always before you, with my cotton cap and white jacket, like a terrible and fantastic apparition."

"Ah, my G.o.d! it is all up with me!" murmured the canon, terrified. "My presentiments did not deceive me; this appet.i.te was too miraculous, these dishes, these wines, too supernatural not to have some awful mystery, some infernal magic in them."

Just at this critical moment the canon fortunately saw his majordomo enter.

"My lord," said Pablo, "the lawyer has just arrived; you know the lawyer who--"

"Pablo, stop there!" cried Dom Diego, seizing his majordomo by the arm and drawing him near to himself. "Do not leave me."

"My G.o.d, sir! what is the matter?" said Pablo. "You seem to be frightened."

"Ah, Pablo, if you only knew," said Dom Diego, in a low, whining voice, without daring to turn his eyes away from the cook.

"My lord," replied Pablo, "I told you the lawyer had arrived."

"What lawyer, Pablo?"

"The one who comes to draw up in legal form your demand for the arrest of Captain Horace, guilty of the abduction of Senora Dolores."

"Pablo, it is impossible to occupy myself now with business. I have no head--I must be dreaming. Ah, if you only knew what had happened! This cook--oh, my presentiments!"

"Then, my lord, I am going to send the lawyer away."

"No!" cried the canon, "no, it is this miserable Captain Horace who is the cause of all my ills. If he had not destroyed my appet.i.te, I should have already breakfasted this morning when this tempter in a white jacket introduced himself here, and I would not have been the victim of his sorcery. No," added Dom Diego, in a paroxysm of anger, "tell this lawyer to wait; he shall write my complaint this very hour. But first let me get out of this awful perplexity," added he, throwing a frightened glance at the silent and formidable cook. "I must know what this mysterious being wants of me to terrify me so. Tell the lawyer to enter my study, and do not leave me, Pablo."

The majordomo went to say a few words outside of the door to the lawyer, who entered an adjacent room, and the canon, the majordomo, and the cook remained alone.

Dom Diego, encouraged by the presence of Pablo, tried to rea.s.sure himself, and said to the man in the white jacket, who still preserved his unruffled and sardonic demeanour:

"See, my good friend, let us talk seriously. It is neither a question of good or of bad angels, but of a man who possesses tremendous talent,--I am speaking of you,--whom I would like to attach to my household at whatever price it may cost. We were discussing the cellar of divine wines, for the acquisition of which I would esteem no sacrifice too much. I speak to you with all the sincerity of my soul, my dear and good friend; reply to me in the same way."

Then the canon whispered to his majordomo:

"Pablo, do you stand between him and me."

"Then," replied the cook, "I will speak to you with equal sincerity, my lord canon, and first, let me repeat, I will be the desolation, the despair of your life."

"You?"

"I."

"Pablo, do you hear him? What have I done to him? My G.o.d!" murmured Dom Diego, "what grudge has he?"

"Remember well my words, my lord canon. In comparison with the marvellous repast I have served you, the best dishes will seem insipid, the best wines bitter, and your appet.i.te, awakened a moment by my power, will be again destroyed when I am no longer there to resurrect it."

"But, my friend," cried the canon, "you are thinking then of--"

The man in the cotton cap and white jacket again interrupted the canon and said:

"In recalling the delicacies which I have made you enjoy a moment, you will be like the fallen angels, who recall the celestial joys of paradise only to regret them in the midst of lamentation and gnashing of teeth."

"My good friend, I pray you one word!"

"You will gnash your teeth, canon!" cried the cook, in a solemn voice, which sounded in the depths of Dom Diego's soul like the blast of the trumpet of the last judgment. "You will be as a soul,--no, you have no soul, you will be like a stomach, scenting, hunting, touching all the choicest dishes that can be served, and crying with terrible groanings as you recall this morning's breakfast: 'Alas! alas! my appet.i.te has pa.s.sed like a shadow; those exquisite dishes I will taste no more! alas!

alas!' Then in your despair you will become lean,--do you hear me, canon?--you will become lean."