Page:Chesterton - The Wisdom of Father Brown.djvu/274

THE WISDOM OF FATHER BROWN or curries, accompanied with their appropriate vintages, were laid before the other two, he only repeated that it was one of his fast-days, and munched a piece of bread and sipped and then left untasted a tumbler of cold water. His talk, however, was exuberant.

"I'll tell you what I'll do for you," he cried; "I'll mix you a salad! I can't eat it, but I'll mix it like an angel! You've got a lettuce there."

"Unfortunately it's the only thing we have got," answered the good-humoured Major. "You must remember that mustard, vinegar, oil and so on vanished with the cruet and the burglar."

"I know," replied Brown, rather vaguely. "That's what I've always been afraid would happen. That's why I always carry a cruet-stand about with me. I'm so fond of salads."

And to the amazement of the two men he took a pepper-pot out of his waistcoat pocket and put it on the table.

"I wonder why the burglar wanted mustard too," he went on, taking a mustard-pot from another pocket. "A mustard plaster, I suppose. And vinegar," producing that condiment, "haven't I heard something about vinegar and brown paper? As for oil, which I think I put in my left——"

His garrulity was an instant arrested; for lifting his eyes, he saw what no one else saw—the 260