“By George, I should think so,” said Doodles.  “I know I do.”

“Not to know the bit out of the neck of the salmon from any other bit, is not to know a false note from a true one.  Not to distinguish a ’51 wine from a ’58, is to look at an arm or a leg on the canvas, and to care nothing whether it is in drawing, or out of drawing.  Not to know Stubbs’ beefsteak from other beefsteaks, is to say that every woman is the same thing to you.  Only, Stubbs will let you have his beefsteak if you will pay him—­him or his master.  With the beautiful woman it is not always so—­not always.  Do I make myself understood?”

“Clear as mud,” said Doodles.  “I’m quite along with you there.  Why should a man be ashamed of eating what’s nice?  Everybody does it.”

“No, Captain Boodle; not everybody.  Some cannot get it, and some do not know it when it comes in their way.  They are to be pitied.  I do pity them from the bottom of my heart.  But there is one poor fellow I do pity more even than they.”

There was something in the tone of the count’s words—­a simple pathos, and almost a melody, which interested Harry Clavering.  No one knew better than Count Pateroff how to use all the inflexions of his voice, and produce from the phrases he used the very highest interest which they were capable of producing.  He now spoke of his pity in a way that might almost have made a sensitive man weep.  “Who is that you pity so much?” Harry asked.

“The man who cannot digest,” said the count, in a low, clear voice.  Then he bent down his head over the morsel of food on his plate, as though he were desirous of hiding a tear.  “The man who cannot digest!” As he repeated the words he raised his head again, and looked round at all their faces.

“Yes, yes; mein Gott, yes,” said Schmoff, and even he appeared as though he were almost moved from the deep quietude of his inward indifference.

“Ah; talk of blessings!  What a blessing is digestion!” said the count.  “I do not know whether you have ever thought of it, Captain Boodle?  You are young, and perhaps not.  Or you, Mr. Clavering?  It is a subject worthy of your thoughts.  To digest!  Do you know what it means?  It is to have the sun always shining, and the shade always ready for you.  It is to be met with smiles, and to be greeted with kisses.  It is to hear sweet sounds, to sleep with sweet dreams, to be touched ever by gentle, soft, cool hands.  It is to be in paradise.  Adam and Eve were in paradise.  Why?  Their digestion was good.  And then they took liberties, eat bad fruit—­things they could not digest.  They what we call, ruined their constitutions, destroyed their gastric juices, and then they were expelled from paradise by an angel with a flaming sword.  The angel with the flaming sword, which turned two ways, was indigestion!  There came a great indigestion upon the earth because the cooks were bad, and they called it a deluge.  Ah, I thank God there is to be no more deluges.