“We are in great luck to-day,” said Burns, as he cut a ruddy duck in twain. “This bird is done just right.”
“I agree with you,” returned Homer, drawing his chair a trifle closer to the table. “Compared to the one we had here last Thursday, this is a feast for the gods. I wonder who it was that cooked this fowl2 originally?”
“I give it up; but I suspect it was done by some man who knew his business,” said Burns, with a smack3 of his lips. “It’s a pity, I think, my dear Homer, that there is no means by which a cook may become immortal4. Cooking is as much of an art as is the writing of poetry, and just as there are immortal poets so there should be immortal cooks. See what an advantage the poet has—he writes something, it goes out and reaches the inmost soul of the man who reads it, and it is signed. His work is known because he puts his name to it; but this poor devil of a cook—where is he? He has done his work as well as the poet ever did his, it has reached the inmost soul of the mortal who originally ate it, but he cannot get the glory of it because he cannot put his name to it. If the cook could sign his work it would be different.”
“You have hit upon a great truth,” said Homer, nodding, as he sometimes was wont5 to do. “And yet I fear that, ingenious as we are, we cannot devise a plan to remedy the matter. I do not know about you, but I should myself much object if my birds and my flapjacks, and other things, digestible and otherwise, that I eat here were served with the cook’s name written upon them. An omelette is sometimes a picture—”
“I’ve seen omelettes that looked like one of Turner’s sunsets,” acquiesced6 Burns.
“Precisely; and when Turner puts down in one corner of his canvas, ‘Turner, fecit,’ you do not object, but if the cook did that with the omelette you wouldn’t like it.”
“No,” said Burns; “but he might fasten a tag to it, with his name written upon that.”
“That is so,” said Homer; “but the result in the end would be the same. The tags would get lost, or perhaps a careless waiter, dropping a tray full of dainties, would get the tags of a good and bad cook mixed in trying to restore the contents of the tray to their previous condition. The tag system would fail.”
“There is but one other way that I can think of,” said Burns, “and that would do no good now unless we can convey our ideas into the other world; that is, for a great poet to lend his genius to the great cook, and make the latter’s name immortal by putting it into a poem. Say, for instance, that you had eaten a fine bit of terrapin7, done to the most exquisite8 point—you could have asked the cook’s name, and written an apostrophe to her. Something like this, for instance:
Oh, Dinah Rudd! oh, Dinah Rudd!
Thou art a cook of bluest blood!
Nowhere within
This world of sin
Have I e’er tasted better terrapin.
Do you see?”
“I do; but even then, my dear fellow, the cook would fall short of true fame. Her excellence9 would be a mere10 matter of hearsay11 evidence,” said Homer.
“Not if you went on to describe, in a keenly analytical12 manner, the virtues13 of that particular bit of terrapin,” said Burns. “Draw so vivid a picture of the dish that the reader himself would taste that terrapin even as you tasted it.”
“You have hit it!” cried Homer, enthusiastically. “It is a grand plan; but how to introduce it—that is the question.”
“We can haunt some modern poet, and give him the idea in that way,” suggested Burns. “He will see the novelty of it, and will possibly disseminate14 the idea as we wish it to be disseminated15.”
“Done!” said Homer. “I’ll begin right away. I feel like haunting to-night. I’m getting to be a pretty old ghost, but I’ll never lose my love of haunting.”
At this point, as Homer spoke16, a fine-looking spirit entered the room, and took a seat at the head of the long table at which the regular club dinner was nightly served.
“Why, bless me!” said Homer, his face lighting17 up with pleasure. “Why, Phidias, is that you?”
“I think so,” said the new-comer, wearily; “at any rate, it’s all that’s left of me.”
“Come over here and lunch with us,” said Homer. “You know Burns, don’t you?”
“Haven’t the pleasure,” said Phidias.
The poet and the sculptor18 were introduced, after which Phidias seated himself at Homer’s side.
“Are you any relation to Burns the poet?” the former asked, addressing the Scotchman.
“I am Burns the poet,” replied the other.
“You don’t look much like your statues,” said Phidias, scanning his face critically.
“No, thank the Fates!” said Burns, warmly. “If I did, I’d commit suicide.”
“Why don’t you sue the sculptors19 for libel?” asked Phidias.
“You speak with a great deal of feeling, Phidias,” said Homer, gravely. “Have they done anything to hurt you?”
“They have,” said Phidias. “I have just returned from a tour of the world. I have seen the things they call sculpture in these degenerate20 days, and I must confess—who shouldn’t, perhaps—that I could have done better work with a baseball-bat for a chisel21 and putty for the raw material.”
“I think I could do good work with a baseball-bat too,” said Burns; “but as for the raw material, give me the heads of the men who have sculped me to work on. I’d leave them so that they’d look like some of your Parthenon frieze22 figures with the noses gone.”
“You are a vindictive23 creature,” said Homer. “These men you criticise24, and whose heads you wish to sculp with a baseball-bat, have done more for you than you ever did for them. Every statue of you these men have made is a standing
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