"Roast pig with stuffing answers the general description," said Owen. "That, you'll admit, is a morsel fit for a king."
"Pooh!" said my grandfather. "But you must really try now. I've run through the mythology, all that I know of it, and tried all the old novelists' names, even Boccaccio and Cervantes. Never were such combinations as I've made--but can't compound anything edible out of them. Again, as to what we do in the morning: we all shave, (that is, all who have beards)--and we yawn, too; at least I do, on waking; but it must be a word of six letters. Then, who can the heathen deity be?"
"Pan is the only heathen deity that has anything to do with cookery," said Owen. "Frying-pan, you know, and stew-pan."
My grandfather caught at the idea, but had not succeeded in making anything of it, or in approximating to the solution of the riddle, when Carlota entered from an inner room.
"I wish, my dear, you would see about the dinner," said the Major; "'tis a quarter past three."
"_Si, mi vida_," (yes, my life,) said Carlota, who was in the habit of bestowing lavishly on my grandfather the most endearing epithets in the Spanish language, some of them, perhaps, not particularly applicable--_niño de mi alma_, (child of my soul,) _luz de mis ojos_, (light of my eyes,) and the like; none of which appeared to have any more effect on the object of them than if they had been addressed to somebody else.
Carlota rung the bell, which nobody answered. "Nurse is busy with de _niña_," she said, when nobody answered it; "I go myself to de _cocina_," (kitchen,)--she spoke English as yet but imperfectly.
"There's one comfort in delay," said the Major; "'tis better to boil a ham too much than too little--and yet I shouldn't like it overdone either."
Here they were alarmed by an exclamation from Carlota. "_Ah Dios! Caramba! Ven, ven, mi niño!_" cried she from the kitchen.
The Major and Owen hastened to the kitchen, which was so close at hand that the smell of the dinner sometimes anticipated its appearance in the dining-room. Mrs Bags, the new cook, was seated before the fire. On the table beside her was an empty champagne bottle, the fellow to which protruded its neck from a pail in one corner, where the Major had put it to cool; and another bottle of more robust build, about half-full, was also beside her. The countenance of Mrs Bags wore a pleasant and satisfied, though not very intelligent smile, as she gazed steadfastly on the ham that was roasting on a spit before the fire--at least one side of it was done quite black, while the other oozed with warm greese; for the machinery which should have turned it was not in motion.