“You have hit upon a great truth,” said Homer, nodding, as he sometimes was wont to do.  “And yet I fear that, ingenious as we are, we cannot devise a plan to remedy the matter.  I do not know about you, but I should myself much object if my birds and my flapjacks, and other things, digestible and otherwise, that I eat here were served with the cook’s name written upon them.  An omelette is sometimes a picture—­”

“I’ve seen omelettes that looked like one of Turner’s sunsets,” acquiesced Burns.

“Precisely; and when Turner puts down in one corner of his canvas, ‘Turner, fecit,’ you do not object, but if the cook did that with the omelette you wouldn’t like it.”

“No,” said Burns; “but he might fasten a tag to it, with his name written upon that.”

“That is so,” said Homer; “but the result in the end would be the same.  The tags would get lost, or perhaps a careless waiter, dropping a tray full of dainties, would get the tags of a good and bad cook mixed in trying to restore the contents of the tray to their previous condition.  The tag system would fail.”

“There is but one other way that I can think of,” said Burns, “and that would do no good now unless we can convey our ideas into the other world; that is, for a great poet to lend his genius to the great cook, and make the latter’s name immortal by putting it into a poem.  Say, for instance, that you had eaten a fine bit of terrapin, done to the most exquisite point—­you could have asked the cook’s name, and written an apostrophe to her.  Something like this, for instance: 

Oh, Dinah Rudd! oh, Dinah Rudd! Thou art a cook of bluest blood! Nowhere within This world of sin Have I e’er tasted better terrapin. Do you see?”

“I do; but even then, my dear fellow, the cook would fall short of true fame.  Her excellence would be a mere matter of hearsay evidence,” said Homer.

“Not if you went on to describe, in a keenly analytical manner, the virtues of that particular bit of terrapin,” said Burns.  “Draw so vivid a picture of the dish that the reader himself would taste that terrapin even as you tasted it.”

“You have hit it!” cried Homer, enthusiastically.  “It is a grand plan; but how to introduce it—­that is the question.”

“We can haunt some modern poet, and give him the idea in that way,” suggested Burns.  “He will see the novelty of it, and will possibly disseminate the idea as we wish it to be disseminated.”

“Done!” said Homer.  “I’ll begin right away.  I feel like haunting to-night.  I’m getting to be a pretty old ghost, but I’ll never lose my love of haunting.”

At this point, as Homer spoke, a fine-looking spirit entered the room, and took a seat at the head of the long table at which the regular club dinner was nightly served.

“Why, bless me!” said Homer, his face lighting up with pleasure.  “Why, Phidias, is that you?”