hollows to fit human anatomies, and its sideboard set out with dusty dishes and a noble ham.  Meeks was a very good cook, although one could not confidently assert that dust and dirt did not form a part of his ingredients.  One of his triumphs was ham cooked in a manner which he claimed to have invented.  After having been boiled, it was baked, and frequently basted in a way which Meeks kept as secret as the bouquet of his grape wine.  Sidney sat at the table eating bread and ham spread with mustard, and there were also a mysterious pie in reserve and a bottle of wine.  “Draw up, Henry,” said Sidney.

“I’ve had supper.”

“What?”

“Sylvia had chicken salad and flapjacks and hot biscuits.”

Sidney sniffed.  “Cut a slice off that ham,” he ordered, “and draw a chair up.  Not that one; you’ll go through.  Yes, that’s right.  Bring over another wineglass while you’re about it.  This is daisy wine, ten years old.  I’ve got a pie here that I’ll be willing to stake your fortune you can’t analyze.  It’s after the pattern of the cold pasties you read about in old English novels.  You shall guess what’s in it.  Draw up.”

Henry obeyed.  He found himself sitting opposite Sidney, eating and drinking with intense enjoyment.  Sidney chuckled.  “Good?” said he.

“I don’t know when my victuals have tasted right before,” said Henry.  He received a large wedge of the pie on his plate, and his whole face beamed with the first taste.

Sidney leaned across the table and whispered.  “Squabs,” said he, “and—­robins, big fat ones.  I shot ’em night before last.  It’s all nonsense the fuss folks make about robins, and a lot of other birds, as far as that goes—­damned sentiment.  Year before last I hadn’t a bushel of grapes on my vines because the robins stole them, and not a half-bushel of pears on that big seckel-pear-tree.  If they’d eaten them up clean I wouldn’t have felt so bad, but there the ground would be covered with pears rotted on account of one little peck.  They are enough sight better to be on women’s bonnets than eating up folks’ substance, though I don’t promulgate that doctrine abroad.  And one thing I ain’t afraid to say:  big fat robins ought to be made some use of.  This pie is enough sight more wholesome for the bodies of men who have immortal souls dependent a little on what is eaten, in spite of the preaching, than Western tainted beef.  I made up my mind that pie was the natural destiny of a robin, and I make squab-and-robin pies every week of my life.  The robins are out of mischief in that pie, and they are doing us good.  What makes you look so, though, Henry?  There’s something besides my pie and ham and wine that gives that look to your face.”

“I’m going back to the shop to-morrow,” said Henry.

Sidney looked at him.  “Most folks would say you were an uncommon fool,” said he.  “I suppose you know that.”

“I can’t help it,” said Henry, happily.  Along with the savory pie in his mouth came a subtler relish to his very soul.  The hunger of the honest worker who returns to his work was being appeased.