V
THE FRYING OF THE HAM

I RETURNED to my room. The perfume
of varied cookery had now concentrated
itself into the most maddening odour I had
ever been tortured by—it was as though
all the ham in the world were being fried
inside there. This time it was no mere
soles, nor potatoes, nor even sausages—it
was ham !

As I realised this I rose, seized the handle
of the door into the crater, and flung it open
before me. There was brown gravy in the
dripping-pan. I saw something upon a vast
silver grill; and then blotting this out ap-
peared the face of old Menu, crimson with
heat.

In a moment he had gripped me by the
shoulder with a hand smeared with gravy,

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