servant, then, had only been secured by self-interest that smacked strongly of dishonesty! How miserable it was to have none to trust, and none to love one, and to wander aimlessly over the wide world, as he was himself about to do! When would he see these old rooms of his again, and, alas! what did he care whether he saw them again or not? The cab was at the door, with his luggage piled, and he was about to descend the stairs, when his clerk put a registered letter into his hand, just come by post. He felt something round and hard in the envelope before he opened it. But he turned his first attention to the letter.

'One who knew your father, and who loves one who is very dear to you, would have half an hour's conversation with you at the above address. It is important for your own interests that you should come at once, as his days-perhaps his hours-are numbered. The enclosed ring will be the writer's credentials for the authenticity of this communication.'

The ring Raymond recognised at the first glance as his father's signet-ring; he had always worn it on his finger before his last expedition abroad; but it had been taken from him by force (as he had stated) by a Chinese official at Dhulang.

How came it now in England, and in the possession of a stranger? There was no signature to the letter: only an address in Bedford Place, and nothing in the contents which pointed to the identification of the writer. But was he a stranger? The phrase 'One who knew your father,' would seem to imply that Raymond himself was unacquainted with him, and yet the handwriting did not seem altogether unfamiliar to his eyes. Was it possible that this man had somehow become possessed of his father's secret, and intended to trade upon it? The letter was mysterious, but it did not give the impression of being treacherous or fraudulent. At all events, the footing on which the writer had placed himself appealed to Raymond's sense of duty. He knew the worst concerning what had happened at Dhulang, but it still remained to preserve, as far as possible, his father's memory from public shame. If this man was what he pretended to be, he might even have something to say in mitigation of that unhappy business. Strange as the matter was so far, it was not stranger (but for the inexplicable presence of the signet-ring) than the allusion made in the letter to Nelly Conway, for to whom save her could the expression one who is very dear to you' refer? There was no other person, alas! 'very dear to him' in all the world. The writer said that he himself loved her. Now, the only person of whom Raymond had ever heard as having paid court to Nelly was Herbert Milburn. And Herbert Milburn had been a friend of

his father's, and had gone to Dhulang in his company. But Raymond had heard that he had left England for China many weeks ago; and even if it was Milburn, why should he communicate with him thus anonymously?

The more he thought of the matter, the more mysterious and impenetrable it became; but it seemed at least of sufficient importance to demand his immediate attention. So Raymond's luggage was taken down from the cab, and he himself was conveyed in it to Bedford Place instead of to the railway station.

154

An Epicurean Tour.

I AM by trade a Professor and by habit an Epicure. During the summer of last year I was despatched, by the learned society to which I am devoted, on a scientific mission to America. It was my duty to collect certain meteorological statistics from a large number of observatories and institutions, to tabulate my chief results, and to frame a beautiful and comprehensive theory on the whole subject, at so many pounds per month, including expenses. The statistics were duly collected, the theory was framed, the papers were laid before the society, and the salary was regularly paid. The results were of course denied, refuted, defended, annihilated, resuscitated, battled over, and finally forgotten, after the fashion of scientific literature generally. Anyone who wishes to learn all about them need only turn up the eight-hundredth folio volume of the society's Transactions, and he will find out a great deal more upon the moot question than he or I can ever hope to remember. So much for the ostensible and official purpose of my Epicurean Tour.

But besides being a professor, I am also a man. In the latter humble capacity I regarded my visit as an opportunity for gaining new gastronomical information, and testing the value of hominy, succotash, canvas-backed duck, and all the other quaintly named delicacies with which casual American acquaintances had so often deafened my ears at French or German tables-d'hôte. Accordingly, I made diligent use of my advantages, took copious notes, and now propose to lay these, the serious results of my mission, before the discriminating readers of Belgravia.' I have not the least doubt that they are quite as valuable to the welfare of humanity at large as all the formidable mass of figures, systematically reduced to five places of decimals, which formed the avowed purpose of my trip.

For, after all, if I may plead the cause of those poor incompris, the epicures, what prejudice can be more irrational than that which a benevolent but somewhat austere public indulges against gastronomy? Suppose we work our ten long hours per diem on behalf of an ungrateful country, wearying our bodies and minds in the service of clients, patients, pupils, or parishioners, what reward do we get for our toil beyond these three things, a good dinner, a sound night's rest, and an approving conscience? For my part, I would not undervalue any of the three, but gratefully

accept them as so many items of gain to set against the ceaseless labours of a working-day world. Our pleasures are not so numerous that we can afford lightly to despise the humblest and least of them. What folly to build ourselves costly palaces of art, to spend thousands in elevating the national taste, to feast eyes and ears upon beautiful pictures and exquisite music, to vie with one another in showing the depth of our devotion to the æsthetic pleasures of sight and hearing, and then to affect an ascetic dislike towards the cultivation of pure, good, wholesome cookery, or the endeavour to make the best use of a dainty natural sense!

However this abstract question may be decided, it is certain that I sailed for New York with the firm intention of experimenting and observing in culinary matters to the very best of my ability. With such a laudable object in view, I took up my residence, the moment I arrived, in a monster Broadway hotel, specially recommended by my fellow-passengers to the respectful attention of gourmets. To one who has never before beheld a specimen of these huge American hotels, its first appearance is certainly striking. The entrance hall leads by a flight of broad stone steps to a capacious bar, where slim and thirsty souls may be observed from dawn to midnight, indulging in a perpetual round of cocktails, juleps, and other delectable mixtures, too deservedly familiar now on our side of the Atlantic to need further description. The lower floor generally contains a range of shops, more or less connected with the hotel, and tenanted by tobacconists, photographers, dentists, and the inevitable barber-for no American ever shaves himself, short of the very last extreme of poverty. The first floor is wholly occupied in front by a long suite of public drawing-rooms, furnished with a gorgeous profusion of crimson velvet and sky-blue satin, which would drive our new artistic decorators into a madhouse, and kill Mr. Morris or Mr. Whistler upon the spot. Nevertheless, to nerves of minor susceptibility, the whole effect, though perhaps a trifle too brilliant, is not distasteful, carried off as it is by the softest of Turkey carpets and the smoothest of inlaid tables. Such magnificence is never to be seen in Europe, except perhaps in a few royal and imperial salons at Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, or a few wealthy mansions in Manchester and the Black Country.

Back of the drawing-room suite comes the battle-field of my epicurean generalship, the dining-hall itself. Not a coffee-room, notice, as our humble British innkeepers are content to style it in their homely, old-fashioned phrase, but a full-blown, magnificent, modern American dining-hall. Partly, no doubt, the term is borrowed from the Parisian salle-à-manger, for the Americans, in a

kind of vain attempt to belie their Anglo-Saxon origin (I beg Mr. Freeman's pardon for the unhistorical but convenient epithet), are fond of taking French phrases or customs from that beloved Paris which forms their prototype of paradise, rather than English ones from the 'unnatural old parient' whom they never weary of abusing, not wholly without reason. Thus, luggage is only known as baggage, while a railway station reappears as a depôt; ladies wait for gentlemen to bow, and carriages pass one another on the right side of the road instead of the left. But I believe this word, dining-hall, has also a deeper and more national meaning. In America, if anywhere, the people is sovereign; and the hotel, the railway-carriage, and the steamboat are the sovereign's home. There velvet and tabouret, gilding and mirrors, painting and sculpture, cunning handicraft and marvels of musical workmanship stand ready for his imperial disposal, as they stand ready in Europe for the orders of their solitary master. So the sovereign people shall fittingly banquet in its noble dining-hall, and right royally it does it.

We had steamed up the exquisite bay-one of the few things in America not spoilt in the actuality by over-anticipation, due to the national brag about seven in the morning; and so after an hour at the custom house and a brief visit to my bedroomnumber 1,247, and at the top of the house, but approached with great comfort by a palatial lift, and evidently furnished for a prince or a republican-I was quite prepared to do justice to my first breakfast ashore. However, as not even a statistician and an epicure can be expected to write down a full and detailed narrative of every meal which he enjoyed during a three months' trip, I propose first to give some general account of the dining-hall, and my earliest experience of its cuisine; after which-since order is the prime requisite of a scientific gastronomer-I shall take the various courses of a dinner in due series, and mention what noteworthy dishes I tasted at each, whether in New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Niagara, or Montreal.

When I entered the hall, I found it filled with an immense number of tables, varying in size from those fitted for parties of thirty to those adapted for the solitary stranger like myself. Toward one of the latter I was gracefully waved by a courteous young gentleman in faultless evening dress, with a Rembrandtesque beard and a military mien, who turned out to be the head waiteror shall I say rather, the master of the ceremonies? A very lively scene one watched while sitting at meat; for there, in the selfsame hall, some five hundred persons were engaged in breakfasting simultaneously, in all stages of their meal. At one time, say