VI.

THE VAGARIES OF HELWYSE.

BALDER HELWYSE was a man full of natural and healthy instincts, not afraid to laugh uproariously when so inclined, nor apt to counterfeit so much as a smile, only because a smile would look well. What showed a rarer audacity, he had more than once dared to weep! To crush down real emotions formed, in short, no part of his ideal of a man. Not belonging to the Littlepot-soon-hot family, he had perhaps never found occasion to go beyond the control of his temper, and blind rage he would in no wise allow himself; but he delighted in antagonisms, and though it came not within his rules to hate any man, he was inclined to cultivate an enemy, as more likely to be instructive than some friends. His love of actual battle was intense; he had

punched heads with many a hard-fisted English schoolboy; high up on his forehead he bore the scar of a German Schlaeger; and later, in Paris, he had deliberately invaded the susceptibilities of a French journalist, had followed him to the field of honour, and been there run through the body with a small-sword, to the satisfaction of both parties He was confined to his bed for a while, but his overflowing spirits healed the wound to the admiration of his doctors.

These examples of self-indulgence have been touched upon only by way of preparing the gentle reader for a yet more serious shock. Helwyse was a disciple of Brillat-Savarin-in one word, a gourmand! His appetite never failed him, and he knew how wisely to direct it. He never ate a careless or thoughtless meal, be its elements simple as they might. He knew, and was loved by the foremost cooks all over Europe. Never did he allow coarseness or

intemperance to mar the refinement of his palate.

"Man," he was accustomed to say, "is but a stomach, and the cook is the pope of stomachs, in whose church are no respectable heretics. Our happiness lies in his saucepan―at the mercy of his spit! Eating is the appropriation to our needs of the good and truth of life as existing in material manifestation: the cook is the high-priest of that symbolic ceremony! I, and kings with me, bow before him! But his is a responsibility beneath which Atlas might stagger: he before all men must be honest, warm-hearted, quick of sympathy, full of compassion towards his race. Let him rejoice, for the world extols him for its well-being! yet tremble! lest upon his head fall the curse of the world's misery!"

This speech was always received with applause, the peroration being delivered with a vast controlled emphasis of eye and voice: and

it was followed by the drinking of the cook's health. "The generous virtues," Mr Helwyse would then go on to say, "arise from the cultivation of the stomach. Out of man's very earthliness springs the flower of his spiritual virtue. We affect to despise the flesh, as vile and unworthy. What then is flesh made of? of nothing?-let who can prove that! No, it is made of spirit—of the divine everlasting substance it is the wall which holds heaven in place! If there be anything vile in it, it is of the Devil's infusion, and enters not into the argument!"

A man who had expressed such views as these at the most renowned tables of France and England, was not likely to forget his principles in the United States. Accordingly, he arose early, as we have seen, on the morning after his arrival, and compelled an astonished waiter to marshal him to the kitchen and introduce him to the cook. The cook of the Granite

Hotel at that time was a round, red-lipped Italian,—an artist and enthusiast; but his temper had been much tried by lack of appreciation and, although his salary was good, he contemplated throwing it over, abandoning the Yankee nation to its fate, and seeking some more congenial field. Balder (who, when the mood was on him, could wield a tongue as persuasive as Richard the Third's) talked to this man, and in seven minutes won his whole heart. The immediate result was a delectable breakfast; but the sequel was a triumph indeed! It seems that the aesthetic Italian had for several days been watching over a brace of plump truffled partridges; this day had they reached perfection, and were to have been eaten by no less a person than the cook himself. These cherished birds did he now actually offer to make over to his eloquent and sympathetic acquaintance. Balder was deeply moved, and accepted the gift on one condition, that the