Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/102

The Loom of Destiny higher shelves was a secret that only the cook and the gods themselves could tell.

From his earliest day, before the régime of the reigning cook, Russell Wentworth Russell could remember the one particular red canister in which the chocolate was always kept. Often he had seen the old cook take out the beautiful, dark-brown squares done up in glittering tin-foil that all his life had seemed so delicious to him, especially on cake.

The old cook, Russell remembered, had been much nicer than Nora, the new one. Before the advent of Nora he had been allowed to stand in the kitchen and gaze wonderingly at the lurid heat of the range, and watch the sizzling roasts being lifted smoking hot from the pan to the big platter, which had queer little runnels in it for the gravy. And he once used to watch, with delight, the sponge cake being pierced with a thin whisp from the broom, to see if it was done in the centre, and get the burnt part when it was cut off. The splutter and bubble of the hot grease when water was 90