“You are quite right,” the Count was saying to Mr. Heard.  “The ideal cuisine should display an individual character; it should offer a menu judiciously chosen from the kitchen-workshops of the most diverse lands and peoples-a menu reflecting the master’s alert and fastidious taste.  Is there anything better, for instance, than a genuine Turkish pilaf?  The Poles and Spaniards, too, have some notable culinary creations.  And if I were able to carry out my ideas on this point I would certainly add to my list of dishes a few of those strange Oriental confections which Mr. Keith has successfully taught his Italian chef.  There is suggestion about them; they conjure up visions of that rich and glowing East which I would give many years of my remaining life to see.”

“Then why not do what I have proposed several times already?” queried the millionaire.  “I am in the East every winter; we reckon this year to reach Bangkok the first fortnight in November.  We can find room for you on board.  We’ll make room!  Your company would give me more pleasure than I can say.”

Count Caloveglia was probably the only male person on earth to whom the owner of the FLUTTERBY would have extended such an invitation.

“My dear friend!” replied the other.  “I shall never be able to repay your kindness, as it is.  Alas, it cannot be done, not now.  And don’t you think,” he went on, reverting to his theme, “that we might revive a few of those forgotten recipes of the past?  Not their over-spiced entremets, I mean—­their gross joints and pasties, their swans and peacocks—­but those which deal, for example, with the preparation of fresh-water fishes?  A pike, to my way of thinking, is a coarse, mud-born creature.  But if you will take the trouble, as I once did, to dress a pike according to the complicated instructions of some obsolete cookery-book, you will find him sufficiently palatable, by way of a change.”

“You would make an excellent chef!”

“It is plain,” added Mr. Heard, “that the Count does not disdain to practise his skill upon the most ancient and honourable of domestic arts.”

“Indeed I don’t.  I would cook con Amore if I had leisure and materials.  All culinary tasks should be performed with reverential love, don’t you think so?  To say that a cook must possess the requisite outfit of culinary skill and temperament—­that is hardly more than saying that a soldier must appear in uniform.  You can have a bad soldier in uniform.  The true cook must have not only those externals, but a large dose of general worldly experience.  He is the perfect blend, the only perfect blend, of artist and philosopher.  He knows his worth:  he holds in his palm the happiness of mankind, the welfare of generations yet unborn.  That is why you will never obtain adequate human nourishment from a young girl or boy.  Such persons may do for housework, but not in the kitchen.  Never in the kitchen!  No one can aspire to be a philosopher who is in an