“No. Ought it to have been?”
“That,” I said, “goes without saying in all my poor dear
great-grandmother's recipes. When condition or quality is not specified
you must get the worst. She was drastic or nothing.... And there's one
or two possible alternatives to some of these other things. You got
FRESH rattlesnake venom.”
“I got a rattlesnake from Jamrach's. It cost--it cost--”
“That's your affair, anyhow. This last item--”
“I know a man who--”
“Yes. H'm. Well, I'll write the alternatives down. So far as I know
the language, the spelling of this recipe is particularly atrocious.
By-the-bye, dog here probably means pariah dog.”
For a month after that I saw Pyecraft constantly at the club and as
fat and anxious as ever. He kept our treaty, but at times he broke
the spirit of it by shaking his head despondently. Then one day in the
cloakroom he said, “Your great-grandmother--”
“Not a word against her,” I said; and he held his peace.
I could have fancied he had desisted, and I saw him one day talking to
three new members about his fatness as though he was in search of other
recipes. And then, quite unexpectedly, his telegram came.
“Mr. Formalyn!” bawled a page-boy under my nose, and I took the telegram
and opened it at once.
“For Heaven's sake come.--Pyecraft.”
“H'm,” said I, and to tell the truth I was so pleased at the
rehabilitation of my great grandmother's reputation this evidently
promised that I made a most excellent lunch.
I got Pyecraft's address from the hall porter. Pyecraft inhabited the
upper half of a house in Bloomsbury, and I went there so soon as I had
done my coffee and Trappistine. I did not wait to finish my cigar.
“Mr. Pyecraft?” said I, at the front door.
They believed he was ill; he hadn't been out for two days.
“He expects me,” said I, and they sent me up.