“You are wrong, for the man will prove his skill.  He will cite you in the law courts, and win his case.”

“Then you have made a formal agreement with him?”

“Certainly; and your letter authorized me to do so.”

“Tell him to come up; I want to speak to him.”

While Possano was downstairs I told Clairmont to go and fetch me an advocate.  The cook came upstairs, I read the agreement, and I saw that it was worded in such a manner that I should be in the wrong legally; but I did not change my mind for all that.

“Sir,” said the cook, “I am skilled in my business, and I can get four thousand Genoese to swear as much.”

“That doesn’t say much for their good taste; but whatever they may-say, the execrable supper you gave me last night proves that you are only fit to keep a low eating-house.”

As there is nothing more irritable than the feelings of a culinary artist, I was expecting a sharp answer; but just then the advocate came in.  He had heard the end of our dialogue, and told me that not only would the man find plenty of witnesses to his skill, but that I should find a very great difficulty in getting anybody at all to swear to his want of skill.

“That may be,” I replied, “but as I stick to my own opinion, and think his cooking horrible, he must go, for I want to get another, and I will pay that fellow as if he had served me the whole time.”

“That won’t do,” said the cook; “I will summon you before the judge and demand damages for defamation of character.”

At this my bile overpowered me, and I was going to seize him anti throw him out of the window, when Don Antonio Grimaldi came in.  When he heard what was the matter, he laughed and said, with a shrug of his shoulders,

“My dear sir, you had better not go into court, or you will be cast in costs, for the evidence is against you.  Probably this man makes a slight mistake in believing himself to be an excellent cook, but the chief mistake is in the agreement, which ought to have stipulated that he should cook a trial dinner.  The person who drew up the agreement is either a great knave or a great fool.”

At this Possano struck in in his rude way, and told the nobleman that he was neither knave nor fool.

“But you are cousin to the cook,” said the landlady.

This timely remark solved the mystery.  I paid and dismissed the advocate, and having sent the cook out of the room I said,

“Do I owe you any money, Possano?”

“On the contrary, you paid me a month in advance, and there are ten more days of the month to run.”

“I will make you a present of the ten days and send you away this very moment, unless your cousin does not leave my house to-day, and give you the foolish engagement which you signed in my name.”

“That’s what I call cutting the Gordian knot,” said M. Grimaldi.

He then begged me to introduce him to the lady he had seen with me, and I did so, telling him she was my niece.