Professor Menu 219

its place. This bird yields one good dish per
week. Result of vegetable marrow again.

“Here is a plantation of vegetable marrow-
bones—all growing ready cooked for table.
The white napkin round each is the natural
foliage.”

At this point I was startled by a huge
fly settling on my head. With a shriek, I
flicked it off.

“Do not injure it,” exclaimed the Pro-
fessor. ‘That is a combination of which
I am particularly proud—the lamb’s sweet-
bread-and-butter-fly. It is a most valuable
addition to the table. Try some of the fruit
of this plant.”

He pointed to a most curious plant, whose
branches bore great tufts of various sweet-
meats—fondants, burnt almonds, assorted
creams, and so on in infinite variety.

I tasted some—having still eaten nothing
(except those little pieces of the strange man)
since my lunch on the six castaways. The
sweets were delicious.

“That,” said Professor Menu, “is the
sweetstuff-briar. Those tufts upon it are, of -