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The Eighth Day: Considine

It was opened the day before yesterday, and I daresay the fizz has gone off a little'? Tea is cheap enough, and yet the hostess seldom or never thinks of ordering up a fresh pot. I believe it is because she is afraid of the butler." "I sympathise with you fully, Colonel," said Lady Considine, "and my withers are unwrung.

You do not often honour me with your presence on Tuesdays, but I am sure I may claim to be one of your honourable exceptions." "Indeed you may," said the Colonel. "Perhaps men ought not to intrude on these occasions; but I have a preference for taking tea in a pretty drawing-room, with a lot of agreeable women, rather than in a club surrounded by old chaps growling over the latest job at the War Office, and a younger brigade chattering about the latest tape prices, and the weights for the spring handicaps." "All these little imperfections go to prove that we are not a nation of cooks," said Van der Roet. "We can't be everything. Heine once said that the Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged to learn the Latin grammar; and it is the same with us. We can't expect to found an empire all over the planet, and cook as well as the French, who-perhaps wisely-never willingly emerge from the four corners of their own land." "There is energy enough left in us when we set about some purely utilitarian task," said Mrs.

Wilding, "but we never throw ourselves into the arts with the enthusiasm of the Latin races. I was reading the other day of a French costumier who rushed to inform a lady, who had ordered a turban, of his success, exclaiming, 'Madame, après trois nuits d'insomnie les plumes sont placées.' And every one knows the story of Vatel's suicide because the fish failed to arrive.