"I observe, dear Marchesa," said Mrs. Fothergill at breakfast on Thursday morning, "that we still follow the English fashion in our breakfast dishes. I have a notion that, in this particular especially, we gross English show our inferiority to the more spirituelles nations of the Continent, and I always feel a new being after the light meal of delicious coffee and crisp bread and delicate butter the first morning I awake in dear Paris."

"I wonder how it happens, then, that two goes of fish, a plateful of omelette, and a round and a half of toast and marmalade are necessary to repair the waste of tissue in dear England?" Van der Roet whispered to Miss Macdonnell.

"It must be the gross air of England or the gross nature of the—"

The rest of Miss Macdonnell's remark was lost, as the Marchesa cried out in answer to Mrs. Fothergill, "But why should we have anything but English breakfast dishes in England? The defects of English cookery are manifest enough, but breakfast fare is not amongst them. In these England stands supreme; there is nothing to compare with them, and they possess the crowning merit of being entirely compatible with English life. I cannot say whether it may be the effect of the crossing, or of the climate on this side, or that the air of England is charged with some subtle stimulating quality, given off in the rush and strain of strenuous national life, but the fact remains that as soon as I find myself across the Channel I want an English breakfast. It seems that I am more English than certain of the English themselves, and I am sorry that Mrs. Fothergill has been deprived of her French roll and butter. I will see that you have it to-morrow, Mrs. Fothergill, and to make the illusion complete, I will order it to be sent to your room."

"Oh no, Marchesa, that would be giving too much trouble, and I am sure you want all the help in the house to carry out the service as exquisitely as you do," said Mrs. Fothergill hurriedly, and blushing as well as her artistic complexion would allow.

"I fancy," said Mrs. Sinclair, "that foreigners are taking to English breakfasts as well as English clothes. I noticed when I was last in Milan that almost every German or Italian ate his two boiled eggs for breakfast, the sign whereby the Englishman used to be marked for a certainty."

"The German would probably call for boiled eggs when abroad on account of the impossibility of getting such things in his own country. No matter how often you send to the kitchen for properly boiled eggs in Germany, the result is always the same cold slush," said Mrs. Wilding; "and I regret to find that the same plague is creeping into the English hotels which are served by German waiters."

"That is quite true," said the Marchesa; "but in England we have no time to concern ourselves with mere boiled eggs, delicious as they are. The roll of delicacies is long enough, or even too long without them. When I am in England, I always lament that we have only seven days a week and one breakfast a day, and when I am in Italy I declare that the reason why the English have overrun the world is because they eat such mighty breakfasts. Considering how good the dishes are, I wonder the breakfasts are not mightier than they are."

"It always strikes me that our national barrenness of ideas appears as plainly in our breakfasts as anywhere," said Mrs. Gradinger. "There is a monotony about them which—"

"Monotony!" interrupted the Colonel. "Why, I could dish you up a fresh breakfast every day for a month. Your conservative tendencies must be very strong, Mrs. Gradinger, if they lead you to this conclusion."

"Conservative! On the contrary, I—that is, my husband—always votes for Progressive candidates at every election," said Mrs. Gradinger, dropping into her platform intonation, at the sound of which consternation arose in every breast. "I have, moreover, a theory that we might reform our diet radically, as well as all other institutions; but before I expound this, I should like to say a few words on the waste of wholesome food which goes on. For instance, I went for a walk in the woods yesterday afternoon, where I came upon a vast quantity of fungi which our ignorant middle classes would pronounce to be poisonous, but which I—in common with every child of the intelligent working-man educated in a board school where botany is properly taught—knew to be good for food."

"Excuse me one moment," said Sir John, "but do they really use board-school children as tests to see whether toadstools are poisonous or not?"

"I do not think anything I said justified such an inference," said Mrs. Gradinger in the same solemn drawl; "but I may remark that the children are taught from illustrated manuals accurately drawn and coloured. Well, to come back to the fungi, I took the trouble to measure the plot on which they were growing, and found it just ten yards square. The average weight of edible fungus per square yard was just an ounce, or a hundred and twelve pounds per acre. Now, there must be at least twenty millions of acres in the United Kingdom capable of producing these fungi without causing the smallest damage to any other crop, wherefore it seems that, owing to our lack of instruction, we are wasting some million tons of good food per annum; and I may remark that this calculation pre-supposes, that each fungus springs only once in the season; but I have reason to believe that certain varieties would give five or six gatherings between May and October, so the weight produced would be enormously greater than the quantity I have named."

Here Mrs. Gradinger paused to finish her coffee, which was getting cold, and before she could resume, Sir John had taken up the parole. "I think the smaller weight will suffice for the present, until the taste for strange fungi has developed, or the pressure of population increased. And before stimulating a vastly increased supply, it will be necessary to extirpate the belief that all fungi, except the familiar mushroom, are poisonous, and perhaps to appoint an army of inspectors to see that only the right sort are brought to market."

"Yes, and that will give pleasant and congenial employment to those youths of the working-classes who are ambitious of a higher career than that of their fathers," said Lady Considine, "and the ratepayers will rejoice, no doubt, that they are participating in the general elevation of the masses."

"Perhaps Mrs. Gradinger will gather a few of her less deadly fungi, and cook them and eat them herself, pour encourager les autres," said Miss Macdonnell. "Then, if she doesn't die in agonies, we may all forswear beef and live on toadstools."

"I certainly will," said Mrs. Gradinger; "and before we rise from table I should like—"

"I fear we must hear your remarks at dinner, Mrs. Gradinger," said the Marchesa. "Time is getting on, and some of the dishes to-day are rather elaborate, so now to the kitchen."