Talking of materialistic, “let us,” quoth the Baron, “be grateful to Mrs. DE SALIS for a bookful of ‘Tempting Dishes for Small Incomes,’ published by LONGMANS & Co.”  First of all get your small income, then purchase this book, for eighteenpence, or less with discount; or (a shorter and a cheaper way) borrow it from a friend.  Let the Small Incomer cast his watery eye over Lobster cutlets, p. 19, and Lobster pancakes:  let him reduce his small income to something still smaller in order to treat himself and family to a Rumpsteak a la bonne bouche, a Sausage pudding, and a Tomato curry.  The sign over a Small-Income House is the picture of a Sheep’s Head, usually despised as sheepish:  but go to p. 28, and have a tete-a-tete (de mouton) with Mrs. DE SALIS about Sheep’s head au Gratin.

Rabbit batter pudding, eh? with shalot a discretion.  How’s that for high?  Let the Small Incomer get some dariole tins, mushrooms, chives, rabbits, tripe, onions, oil, ducks, eggs, and with egg kromeskies he’ll dine like a millionnaire, and be able to appreciate a real epigram of Lamb (not CHARLES) and Peas.  Don’t let the Man with a Small Income be afraid of trying Un Fritot de Cervelle de Veau, simply because of the name, which might do honour to the menu of a LUCULLUS.  “Blanch the Brains” for this dish—­delicious!—­“and fry till a nice golden colour.”  Beautiful!  Nice golden colour like dear BLANCHE’s hair:  only often that’s a BLANCHE without brains.  And now your attention, my Small Incomer, to Eggs a la Bonne Femme.  This work ought to be arranged as a catechism:  in fact all cookery books, all receipt books, should be in the form of Question and Answer.

Question.—­Now, Sir, how would you do Eggs a la Bonne Femme?

Perhaps this query might be preceded by general information as to who the particular “bonne femme” (for she must have been a very particular bonne femme) was to whom so many dishes are dedicated. [In the Scotch McCookery books, Broth o’ the gude-wife would be a national name.]

Answer.—­To make Eggs a la Bonne Femme, Mrs. DE SALIS says, “Get as many eggs as there are guests (they should all be the same size)—­” Now this is a difficulty.  It is not an easy matter to assemble round your table a party of guests “all the same size:”  still more difficult is it to get together a lot of eggs all the same size as the guests.  But, when this has been got over, read the remainder at p. 55, and then, as Squeers’s pupils used to have to do, go and reduce the teaching to practice.

The receipt for Potatoes a la Lyonnaise begins with, “Mince an onion, and fry it in hot butter”—­O rare!  Why do more?  Who wants potatoes after this?  And, when you’ve had quite enough of it, smoke a pipe, drink a glass of whiskey-and-water, go to an evening party, and then, if you won’t be one of the most remarkable advertisements for cette bonne femme Madame DE SALIS, why I don’t live in Baronion Halls, and my name’s no longer