"But Monsieur Brierley is half converted already, my dear Monsieur Louis; he told me the last time I was at his bungalow that he would never kill another deer. He was before his fireplace under the head of a doe at the time--one he had shot and had stuffed. Am I not right, Monsieur Brierley?" and Lemois inclined his head toward the hunter.
"Same old game," muttered Louis. "Had his fun first."
"I have been a cook all my life," continued the undaunted Lemois, "and half the time train my own chefs in my kitchen, and yet I say to you that I could feed my whole clientele sumptuously without ever spilling a drop of blood. I live in that way myself as far as I can, and so would you if you had thought about it."
"Skimmed milk and hard-boiled eggs for breakfast, I suppose!" roared Louis in derision, "with a lettuce sandwich and a cold turnip for luncheon."
"No, you upsidedown man! Cheese souffles, omelets in a dozen different ways, stuffed peppers, tomatoes fried, stewed, and fricasseed, oysters, clams----"
"Ah! but crabs and lobsters suffer like any other thing which has the power to move; what I am trying to do is to live so that nothing will suffer because of my appetite."
"And go round looking like a skeleton in a doctor's office! How could you get these up on boiled cabbage?" and he patted Herbert's biceps.
"No, my dear Monsieur Louis," persisted Lemois gravely, still refusing to be side-tracked by the young painter's onslaughts. "If we loved the things we kill for food as Monsieur Brierley loves his dog Peter, there would never be another Chateaubriand cooked in the world. What would you say if I offered you one of that dear fellow's ribs for breakfast? It would be quite easy--the butcher is only around the corner and Pierre would broil it to a turn. But that would not do for you gourmets. You must have liver or sweetbreads cut from an animal you never saw and of which, of course, you know nothing. If the poor animal had been a playmate of Mignon's--and she once had a pet lamb--you could no sooner cut its throat than you could Peter's."
Before Louis could again explode, Brierley, who, at mention of Peter's name had leaned over to stroke the dog's ears, now broke in, a dry smile on his face.