"If you never try a new thing, how can you tell what it's like? It's men
such as you that hamper the world's progress. Think of the man who first
tried German sausage!"
It was a great success, that Irish stew. I don't think I ever enjoyed a
meal more. There was something so fresh and piquant about it. One's
palate gets so tired of the old hackneyed things: here was a dish with a
new flavour, with a taste like nothing else on earth.
And it was nourishing, too. As George said, there was good stuff in it.
The peas and potatoes might have been a bit softer, but we all had good
teeth, so that did not matter much: and as for the gravy, it was a poem -
a little too rich, perhaps, for a weak stomach, but nutritious.
We finished up with tea and cherry tart. Montmorency had a fight with
the kettle during tea-time, and came off a poor second.
Throughout the trip, he had manifested great curiosity concerning the
kettle. He would sit and watch it, as it boiled, with a puzzled
expression, and would try and rouse it every now and then by growling at
it. When it began to splutter and steam, he regarded it as a challenge,
and would want to fight it, only, at that precise moment, some one would
always dash up and bear off his prey before he could get at it.
To-day he determined he would be beforehand. At the first sound the
kettle made, he rose, growling, and advanced towards it in a threatening
attitude. It was only a little kettle, but it was full of pluck, and it
up and spit at him.
"Ah! would ye!" growled Montmorency, showing his teeth; "I'll teach ye to
cheek a hard-working, respectable dog; ye miserable, long-nosed, dirty-
looking scoundrel, ye. Come on!"
And he rushed at that poor little kettle, and seized it by the spout.
Then, across the evening stillness, broke a blood-curdling yelp, and
Montmorency left the boat, and did a constitutional three times round the
island at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour, stopping every now and
then to bury his nose in a bit of cool mud.
From that day Montmorency regarded the kettle with a mixture of awe,
suspicion, and hate. Whenever he saw it he would growl and back at a
rapid rate, with his tail shut down, and the moment it was put upon the
stove he would promptly climb out of the boat, and sit on the bank, till
the whole tea business was over.
George got out his banjo after supper, and wanted to play it, but Harris
objected: he said he had got a headache, and did not feel strong enough
to stand it. George thought the music might do him good - said music
often soothed the nerves and took away a headache; and he twanged two or
three notes, just to show Harris what it was like.
