The Sound Machine 1949 Tr vasa warm summer evening and Klausner walked quickly through the front gare and around the side ofthe house and into dhe arden at the back. He went on down the gardea until he came to 4 wooden shed and he unlocked the door, went inside and closed the door behind him, ‘The interior ofthe shed was an unpainted room. Against one wall, on the left, there was a long, wooden workbench, and on it, among a liering of wires and bateries and small sharp tools, there stood black box about three fet long, the shape ofa child's coffin Klausner moved across the room to the box. The top of the box Yas open, and he bent down and began to poke and pecr inside among a mass of differenccoloured wires and silver tubes, He picked up a piece of paper that lay beside the box, srudied ir care fully, pu it down, peered inside the box and started running Is fingers along the wires, tugging gently at them w test the connec tions, glancing back athe paper, then into the bon, then at the paper auaio, checking each wise. He did this for perhaps an hows ‘Then he put a hand around to the front of the box where there were three dials, and he began to ewiddle them, watching tthe serve time the movement ofthe mechanism inside the box. All she while he kept speaking softly to himself, nodding his head, smiling some times, his hands always moving, the fingers moving swifly defy, inside the box, his mouth twisting into curious shapes whem a thing was delicate or dificult 10 do, saying, "Yes... Yen... And nou this one... Yes... Yes... Buti this right Is ie—avhere’s my iagram?... Ah, yes... Of courte... Yes, yes. Thar's sight ‘And now... Good. ... Good, ... Yes... Yes, yes, yes." His ‘concentration was intense; his movements were quick there wae sn sir of urgency about the way he worked, of breathlessness, of song suppressed excitement, Suddenly he heard footsteps on the gravel path outside and he To Sound Machine = 4x straightened and turned swifily as the door opened and a tall man ‘came in, Ie was Scor. It was only Scott, the doctor. “Well, well, well,” the Doctor said. “'$o this is where you hide, yourself in the evenings.” “Hullo, Scor," Klausner said, “Thappened to be passing,” the Doctor told him, “so I dropped in to see how you were. There was no one in the house, #0 I eane. ‘on down here. How's that throat of yours been behaving?" Tes allright. I's fine.” “Now I'm bere I might as well have & look at it” “Please don't trouble. I'm quite cured. I'm fine.” ‘The Doctor began to fee! the tension in the room. He looked ‘at the black box on the bench; then he looked at the man. “You've {80t your hat on," he ssi. “Oh, have I?" Klausner reached up, removed the hat and put ion the bench, ‘The Doctor came up closer and bent down to look into the box. “"Whar's this?” he said. “Making a radio?” “No. Just fooling around,” “It’s got rather complicated Jooking innards ‘1Yes.”" Klausner seemed tense and distracted. ‘What i it?” the Doctor asked. “7s rather a frightening-look- ing thing, isn’ 2” “I's just an idea.” rat bas to do with sound, that’s all {{Good heavens, man! Don't you get enough ofthat sorof thing all day in your work?" “I like sound. “So it seems.” The Doctor went to the door, turned, and ssid, {Well I won't discurb you. Glad your throat’s not worrying you any more.” But he kept standing there, looking atthe box, intrigued by the remarkable complexity of its inside, curious to know what this Strange patient of his was up to. “Whats it really for?" he asked. “You've made me inquisitive.” Klausner looked down at the box, then at the Doctor, and he reached up and began gently to scratch the lobe of his right eas. ‘There was a pase. The Doctor etood by the door, waiting, smiling, “All ighs,1'lltell you, if you're interested.” There was another ‘Pause, and the Doctor could see that Klausner was having trouble about how to begin, ‘He was shifting from one foot to the other, tugging at the lobeTHE BEST OF ROALD DAHL: 42 of his ear, looking at his fet, and then at lat, slowly, he sid, “Well, it’s like this... the theory is very simple, really. The human ear «+ « You know that it can't hear everything. There are sounds that lle 0 low-pitched or so high-pitched that it can't hear them.” “Yes,” the Doctor said. “Yes.” “Well, speaking very roughly, any nore so high that it has more than fifteen thousand vibrations a second—we can't hear it. Dogs ‘have better ears than us. You know you can buy a whistle whose note is so high-pitched that you can't hear it at all. Buta dog can hear it.” “Yes, I've seen one,” the Doctor said. “Of course you have. And up the scale, higher than the nore of that whistle, there is another no‘—a vibration if you like, but I prefer to think of i as a note. You can’t hear that one either. And ‘above that there is another and another rising right up the scale for ‘ever and ever and ever, an endless succession of notes... an infinity ‘of notes... there is a note—if only ours ears could hear it—so high that ic vibrates million times a second . . . and another a million times as high as that .. . and on and on, higher and higher, as far ‘asnumbers g0, which is... infinity... eternity... beyond the stars.” ‘Klausner was becoming more animated every moment. He was 2 small frail man, nervous and twitchy, with always moving hands. His large head inclined toward his left shoulder as though his neck ‘were not quite strong enough to support it rigidly. His face was smooth and pale, almost white, and the pale grey eyes that blinked ‘and peered from behind a pair of steel spectacles were bewildered, tuafocussed, remote. He was a frail, nervous, ewitchy litle min, a ‘moth of a man, dreamy and distracted; suddenly flutering and ani- mated; and now the Doctor, looking at that strange pale face and those pale grey eyes, fele that somehow there was about this litle ‘person a quality of distance, of immense, immeasurable distance, as though the mind were far away from where the body was. ‘The Doctor waited for him to go on. Klausner sighed and ‘clasped his hands tightly together. “I believe,” he said, speaking more slowly now, “that there isa whole world of sound about us all the time that we cannot heat. It is possible that up there in those high-pitched inaudible regions there is a new exciting music being, made, with subtle harmonies and fierce grinding discords, a music 0 powerful tha it would drive us mad if only our ears were tuned to hear the sound of it. There may be anything ... forall we know there may—"" “Yes,” the Doctor said. “But i's not very probable.” The Sound Machine + 43, “Why not? Why not?” Klausner pointed to a fy siting on a ‘small roll of copper wire on the workbench. “You see that ly? What sort ofa noise is thet fly making now? None—that one can hear. But for all wo know tho creature may be whistling like mad on a very high note, or barking or croaking or singing a song. I's goca mouth, hasn't ie? I's got a throat!” ‘The Doctor looked at the fly and he smiled. He was sill sandi by the door with his hand on the doorknob. “Well,” he sai. you're going to check up on that? “Some time ago,” Klausner said, “I made a simple instrument that proved to me the existence of many odd inaudible sounds. (Often I have satand watched the needle of my instrument recording, the presence of sound vibrations in the air when I myself could hear ‘nothing, And shore are the sounds I want to listen to. T want to know ‘where they come from and who or what is making them.”* “And that machine on the table there," the Doctor said, “is that ‘g0ing to allow you to hear these noises?” “Te may. Who knows? So far, I've had no luck. But I've made ‘some changes in it and tonight I'm ready for another trial. This machine,” he said, touching i with his hands, is designed to pick up sound vibrations thar are too high-pitched for reception by the Jhuman eas, and t0 convert them to a scale of audible tones. I tune jow d'you mean?” isn’t complicated. Say I wish ro listen to the squeak of a bat. ‘That's a fairly high-pitched sound—aboue thirty thousand vibrations ‘a second. The average human ear can't quite hear it. Now, if there ‘were a bat fying around this room and I tuned in to thiry thousand ‘on my machine, I would hear the squeaking of that bat very clearly. T would even hear the correct note—F sharp, or B fiat, or whatever it might be—but merely at a much lower pitch. Don't you under- stand?” ‘The Doctor looked at the long black coffin-box. “And you're going to try it tonight?” eee ell, I wish you luck.” He glanced at his watch. “My good- ness" he said. “I must fly. Goodbye, and thank you for telling me. must call again sometime and find out what happened.” The Doc- tor went out and closed the door behind him. For a while longer, Klausner fussed about with the wires in the black box; then he straightened up and ina soft excited whisper said,THE BEST OF ROALD DAHL + 44 ‘Now we'll ry again ... We'll ake it out into the garden this time «and then perhaps .. . perhaps .. the reception will be beter. Liftitup now... carefully....Oh, my God, i's heavy!” He carried the box to the door, fcund that he couldn't open the door without ‘putting it down, carried ie back, put it on the bench, opened the doot, and then carried it with some difficulty into the garden. He placed the box carefully on 2 small wooden table thar stood on the lawn. He returned to the shed and fetched a pair of earphones. He plugged the wire connections from the earphones into the machine ‘and put the earphones over his ears. The movements of his hands ‘were quick and precise. He was excited, and breathed loudly and ‘quickly through his mouth. He kept on talking to himself with licle ‘words of comfort and encouragement, as though he were affaid— afraid that the machine might not work and afraid also of whet might happen if ic did. "He stood there in the garden beside the wooden table, so pale, ‘small, and thin that he looked like an ancient, consumptive, bespec- tacled child. The sun bad gone down. There was no wind, no sound atall. From where he stood, he could see over a low fence into the next garden, and there was a woman walking down the garden with 1 flower basket on her arm. He watched her for a while without thinking about her ata. Then he turned to the box on the table and pressed a switch on it front. He put his left hand on the volume ‘control and his right band on the knob thar moved a needle across a large central dial, like the wave-length dial ofa radio. The dial was ‘marked with many numbers, in a series of bands, starting at 15,000 ‘and going on up to 1,000,000. ‘And now he was bending forward over the machine. His head was cocked to one side in a tense listening attitude. His right hand ‘was beginning to turn the knob. The needle was travelling slowly ‘across the dial, so slowly he could hardly see it move, and in the ‘earphones he could hear a faint, spasmodic crackling. ‘Behind this crackling sound he could hear a distant humming tone which was the noise of the machine itself, but that was all. As he listened, he beceme conscious of acurious sensation, a feeling that his ears were stretching out away from his head, that each ear was ‘connected to his head by a thin stiff wire, like a tentacle, and that the wires were lengtiening, that the ears were going up and up toward a secret end forbidden territory, a dangerous ultrasonic re- ‘gion where ears had never been before and had no right ro be. ‘The litte needle crepe slowly across the dial, and suddenly he The Sound Machine » 45 heard a shriek, @ frightul piercing shrek, and he cing shriek, jumped and se eh rng te heed around him as if expecting to see the person who had shrieked. ‘There was no ope in sight except the woman in the garden next door, and ie was cerainly not she. She was bending down, cutting velo rote and puting them in ber basket. in it eame—a chroatless, inhuman shriek, sharp and she very clear and cold. The noe iuelf posses minor, meal quality that he had never heard before. Klausner looked around him, searching instinctively forthe source ofthe cose, The woman next door was the only living thing insight. He saw ber reach down, take a rose seem inthe fingers of one hand and snip the stem with 4 pair of scissors. Again he heard the scream. Te came atthe exact moment when the rose tem was cut. ‘At his pois, the woman straightened up, put he sisors inthe base with the oes and turned 0 wa ay “Mrs, Saunders!” Klausner shouted, his voice sil wi ment, "Oh, Mrs Saunders” igi od ind looking round, the woman saw her neighbor standi islet fn atmvaving te pean wh a fe phones on is head—calling o her in a Bonet on his healing to her na vices igh aod lou hat “Cur another one! Please cut another one quick’! She stood stil, saring a him. "Why, Mr. Klasnes gg he ee il is Mr. Klausoer,” she said, “Please do as I ask," he said. “Cut just one more rose!” Mrs. Saunders had always believed her neighbor to be a rather Peculiar person; now it seemed that he had gone completly crazy, She wondered whether she should run into the hovse an fetch her husband. No, she thought. No, he's harmless. T'l use humor him, “Certainly, Mr. Klausner, ifyou like," she sid. She took her slssors from the basket, beat down and snipped another ose. Again Klausner heard that frightful, throadless shriek in the earphones; again itcame a the exact moment the rose stem was cut. He took off the earphones and ran tothe fence that seperated the ‘twogardens. “Alright,” he said. “That's enough. No more. Please, 10 more’ : ‘The woman stood there, a yellow rose in one han, clippes i the othe, looking at him, none ad ipperin “'m going to tell you something, Mrs. Saunders," he asd, ‘something that you won't believe." He put his hands on top oftheTHE BEST OF ROALD DAHL: 46 fence and peered at her intently through his thick spectacles. “You have, this evening, cut a basketful of roses. You have with a sharp Dair of scissors cur through the stems of living things, and each rose thar you cut screamed in the most rerrible way. Did you know that, Mrs. Saunders?” “No,” she said. "I certainly didn’t know that ‘happens to be true,” he said. Hee was breathing rather rap- idly, but he was trying to control his excitement. “T heard them shrieking. Each time you cut one, I heard the cry of pain. A very high-pitched sound, approximately one hundred and thirtyswo thousand vibrations a second. You couldn't possibly have heard it yourself. But / heard it ‘Did you really, Mr. Klausner?" She decided she would make 1 dash for the house in about five seconds. "You might say,” he went on, “that a rosebush has no nervous system to feel with, no throst to cry with. You'd be tight. Ie haso't. Not like ours, anyway. But bow do you know, Mrs. Seunders"—and hhere he leaned far over the fence and spoke in a fierce whisper— “how do you know that a rosebush doesn't feel as much pain when someone cuts its stem in two as you would fee if someone cut your wrist off with a garden shears? How do ou know that? I's alive, isn't ie “Yes, Mr. Klausner. Oh yes—and good night.” Quickly she ‘turned and ran up the garden to her house. Klausner went back to the table. He put on the earphones and stood for a while listening, He could still hear the faint crackling sound and the humming noise ‘of the machine, but nothing more. He bent down and took hold of ‘a small white daisy growing on the lawn. He took it between thumb ‘and forefinger and slowly pulled it upward and sideways until the stem broke. From the moment that he stared pulling to the moment when the stem broke, he heard—he distincly heard in the earphones—a faint high-pitched cry, curiously inanimate. He took another daisy ‘and did it again. Once more he heard the cry, but he wasn't so sure ‘now thar it expressed pain. No, it wasn't pain; it was surprise. Or was it? Ie dida’t really express any of the feelings or emotions known 10 4 human being. It was just a cry, a neutral, stony cry—a single ‘emorionless note, expressing nothing. It had been the same with the roses. He had been wrong in cry of pain. A flower probably didn’t feel pain. It felt something else which we dida’t know about—something called toin or spurl or plinuckment, or anything you like. The Sound Machine + 47 He stood up and removed the earphones. Ie was getting dark and he could see pricks of light shining in the windows ofthe houses all around him. Carefully he picked up the black boa fvorn de wble, ‘carried it into the shed and put it on the workbench. Then he went ‘out, locked the door behind him and walked up to the house. ‘The next morning Klausner was up as soon as it was light. He dressed and went straight to the shed. He picked up the machine and carried it ouside, clasping it to his chest with both hands, walking unsteadily under its weight. He went past the house, out through the front gate, and across the road to the park. There he paused and looked around him; then he went on until he came to a large tree, beech tree, and he placed the machine on the ground close to the ‘trunk of the tree. Quickly he went back to the house and got an axe from the coal cellar and carried it across the road into the park. He put the axe on the ground beside the tree. ‘Then he looked around him again, peering nervously through his thick glasses in every direction. There was no one about. It was six in the morning, He put the earphones on his head and switched on the machine. He listened for a moment to the faint familiar humming sound; then he picked up the axe, took a stance with his leas wide apart and swung the axe as hard as he could atthe base of the tree trunk. The blade eut deep into the wood and stuck there, and atthe instant of impact he heard a most extraordinary noise in the earphones. Ie was, ‘@ new noise, unlike any he had heard before—a harsh, noteless, enormous noise, a growling, low-pitched, screaming sound, not uick and shore like the noise ofthe roses, but drawn out like @ sob, lasting for flly a minute, loudestat the moment when the axe struck, fading gradually fainter and fainter until it was gone. Klausner stared in horror at the place where the blade of the ‘axe had sunk into the woodflesh of the tree; then gently he took ‘the axe handle, worked the blade loose and threw the thing on the ‘ground. With his fingers he touched the gash that the axe had ‘made in the wood, touching the edges of the gash, tying to press them together to close the wound, and he kept saying, “Tree oh tree... Tam sorry ... Tam so sorry . .. but it will heal it will heal fine . . .” or a while he stood there with his hands upon the trunk of the ‘reat tree; then suddenly he turned away and hurried off out of the park, across the road, through the front gate and back into his house. He went o the telephone, consulted the book, dialed a number and ‘waited, He held the receiver tightly in his left hand and tapped theTHE BEST OF ROALD DAHL: 48 ‘able impatiently with his right. He heard the telephone buzzing at the other end, and then the click of a'lifted receiver and a man's ‘voice, a sleepy voice, saying: “Hullo, Yes.” “Dr. Scom?” he said. "Yes. Speaking.” “Dr. Scott. You must come at once—quickly please.” "Who is it speaking?” “Klausner here, and you remember what I told you las night ‘about my experience with sound, and how I hoped J might—" “Yes, yes, of course, but what's the matter? Are you il?” “No, I'm not ill, bue—" “Tes half pascsix in the morning,” the Doctor said, “and you call ‘me, but you are not il.” ‘Please come. Come quickly. I want someone to hear it. I's driving me mad! I can't believe it...” ‘The Doctor heard the frantic, almost hysterical nore inthe man's voice, the same note he was used to heating in the voices of people ‘who called up and said, “There's been an accident. Come quickly.” He said slowly, “You really want me to get out of bed and come ‘over now?" “All right thea, I'll come.’ ‘Klausner sar down beside the telephone and waited. He tried to remember what the shriek of the tree had sounded like, but he ‘couldn't. He could remember only that it had been enormous and frightful and chat it had made him feel sick with horrot. He tied to imagine what sore of noise a human would make if he had to stand ‘anchored to the ground while someone deliberately swung a small sharp thing a hs leg so thatthe blade cut in deep and wedged itself in the cut. Same sort of noise perhaps? No. Quite different. The noise of the tree was worse than any known human noise because Of that frightening, toneless,chroadless quali about other living things, and he thought immediately of afield of ‘wheat, a field of wheat standing up straight and yellow and alive, ‘with the mower going through it, cutting the stems, five hundred stems a second, every second. Oh, my God, whac would shat noise be like? Five hundred wheat plants screaming together, and every second another five hundred being cut and screaming and—no, he ‘thought. I do not want ta go to a wheat field with my machine. T ‘would never eat bread after that. But what about potatoes and ‘abbages and carrots and onions? And what about apples? Ab, no. The Sound Machine » 49) Apples are allright. They fall off naturally when they are ripe. Apples are al ight if you let chem fall off instead of tearing them from the tree branch. Buc not vegetables. Not a potato for example. ‘A potato would surely shriek; so would a carrot and ea onion end cabbage... He heard the click ofthe front gate latch and he jumped up and ‘went out and saw the tall doctor coming down the patch, litle black bag in hand. “Well,” the Doctor said. “Well, wha’ all the trouble?” “Come with me, Doctor. I want you to hear it. called you because you're che only one I've tol 's over the road in the park Will you come now?" ‘The Doctor looked at him. He seemed calmer now. There was 10 sign of madness or hysteria; he was merely disturbed and excited. ‘They went across the road into the park and Klausner led the ‘way tothe great beech tee at the foo of which stood the long black ‘offi box of the machine—and the axe. “Why did you bring it out here?" the Doctor asked, “I wanted a tee. There aren't any big tees in the garden.” “And why the axe?" “You'll sein a moment. Butnow please puton these earphones ‘nd listen Listen carefully and tell me afterwards precisely what you hear. want to make quite sure..." ‘The Doctor smiled and took the earphones and put them over his ears. ‘Klausner bent down and flicked the switch on the panel of the ‘machine; then he picked up the axe and took his stance with his legs part, ready to swing. For a moment he paused, “Can you hear anything?” he said to the Doctor. ‘Can I wha?" ‘Can you bear anything?” “Justa humming noise, Klausner stood there with the axe in his hands trying to bring himself to swing, but the thought ofthe noise chat the ree would make made him pause again, “"What are you waiting for?” the Doctor asked. “Nothing,” Klausner answered, and then he led the axe and Serung it athe wee; and as he ewung, he thought he fle, he could ‘wear he felt movement of the ground on which he stood, He felt 8 slight shifting of the earth beneath his feet as though the roots of the tree were moving underneath the sil, ut was ro late ro check.THE BEST OF ROALD DAHL + 50 the blow and the axe blade struck the tree and wedged deep into the ‘wood. At that moment, high overhead, there was the cracking sound ‘of wood splintering and the swishing sound of leaves brushing ‘against other leaves and they both looked up and the Doctor cried, “Watch out! Rua, man! Quickly run!” ‘The Doctor had ripped off the earphones and was running away fast, but Klausner stood spellbound, staring up atthe great branch, sixty feet long at least, that was bending slowly downward, breaking and crackling and splintering atts thickest point, where it joined the ‘main trunk of the tree. The branch came crashing down and Klausner leape side just in time. Ie fell upon the machine and smashed it into pieces. “Great heavens!” shouted the Doctor as he came running beck. “That was a near one! I thought it had got you!" Klausner was staring at the tree. His large head was leaning 10 ‘one side and upon his smooth white face there was a tense, horified expression. Slowly he walked up tothe tree and gently he prized the blade loose from the trunk. “Did you heart?" he said, turing to the Doctor. His voice was barely audible. ‘The Doctor was still out of breath from the running and the ‘excitement, “Hear what?" “In the earphones. Did you hear anything when the axe seruck?" ‘The Doctor began to rub the back of his neck. “Well,” he said, “as a maner of fact...” He paused and frowned and bit his lower lip. “No, I'm not sure. I couldn't be sure. I don’t suppose I had the ‘earphones on for more than a second after the axe struck.” “Yes yes, but what did you hear?” “I,don't know,” the Doctor said. “I don't know what I heard. Probably the noise of the branch breaking." He was speaking rap- idly, rather irritably. ‘What did it sound like?” Klausner leaned forward slightly, svaring bard at the Doctor. “Exacly what did it sound like?” “Ob hell!” the Doctor said. “I really don’t know. I was more interested in getting out of the way. Let's leave it." “Dr. Scot, what-did-tsound like?” “For God's sake, how could I tell, whac with half che tree falling ‘on me and having to run for my life?" The Doctor verainly seemed ‘nervous. Klausner had sensed it now. He stood quite still, searing at the Doctor, and for fully half a minute he dida’t speak. The Doctor Tie Sound Machine + 5 moved his feet, shrugged his shoulders and half turned to go. “Well,” he said, “We'd better get back.” “Look,” said the litle man, and now his smooth white face became cuddenly suffused with color. “Louk,” he sald, “you stitch this up." He pointed to the last gash that the axe had made in the ‘wee trunk. “You stitch this up quickly.” “Don't be silly,” the Doctor said. “You do as I say. Stitch it up.” Klausner was gripping the axe handle and he spoke sofily, ina curious, almost a threatening tone. “Don't be silly,” the Doctor said. “I can't stitch through wood. Come on. Let's get back.” “So you can't stitch through wood?" fo, of course not.” “Have you got any iodine in your bag?” “What if T have?" “Then paint the cut with iodine. It'll sting, but that can’t be helped. low look,” the Doctor said, and again he turned as if to go. ‘Let's not be ridiculous. Let's get back 0 the house and then . . "Painttbecut with iodine,” ‘The Doctor hesitated. He saw Klausner’s hands tightening on the handle of the axe. He decided that his only alternative was 10 run away fast, and he certainly wasn't going to do thet. “All right," he said. “I'll paint ic with iodine.” He gor his black bag which was lying on the grass about ten yards away, opened it and took out a bore of iodine and some cotton wool. He went up to the tree trunk, uncorked the bottle, tipped some of the iodine onto the corton wool, bent down and ‘began to dab ie into the cut. Hee kept one eye on Klausner who was standing motionless with the axe in his hands, watching him. “Make sure you get it right in.” "Yes," the Doctor said, “Now do the other one, the one just above ‘The Doctor did as he was told “There you are," he said. “It’s done.” He straightened up and surveyed his work in a very serious ‘manner. “That should do nicely.” Klausner came closer and gravely examined the two wounds. “Yes,” he said, nodding his huge head slowly up and down, “Yes, that will do nicely.” He stepped back a pace. “You'll come ‘and look at them again tomorrow?”THE BEST OF ROALD DAHL 32 ‘Oh yes," the Doctor ssid. “Of course. re iodine on?" "Thank you, Doctor,” Klausner said, and he nodded his head ‘again and he dropped the axe and all at once he smiled, a wild excited smile, and quickly the Doctor went over to him and gently he took him by the arm and he said, "Come on, we must go now,” and suddenly they were walking away, the two of them, walking silently, rather hurriedly across the park, over the road, back to the house. Taste 1951 ‘Throne were st of us to dion that nigh at Mike Schofelds house in London: Mike and his wife and daughter, my wife and 1, and a man called Richard Prat Richard Prate was a famous gourmet. He was president of a small society known as che Epicure, and each month he circulated Pvately ois members a pamphlet on food and wines. He orga nized dinners where sumpesous dishes and rare wines were served, He refused to smoke for fear of harming his palate. and when discussing a wine, he bad a curious, rather deol abit of refering to cas though it were a living being. "A pradent wine," he would sey, “rather difden and evasive, but quite prudent" Or, humoured wine, benevolent and cheerfulmslighty obscene, per. haps, but nonetheless good rumoured Thad been to diner at Mike's wice before when Richard Prte vex there and on each occasion Mike and his wife had gone ou of their way to produce a special meal forthe famous gourmet, And this ‘one, clearly, was tobe no exception, The moment we entered the dining room, I could sce that the table was laid fora feast The tll candles, the yellow roses, the quantity of shining silver, he three ineglasies to each person, and above al, he faint cent of roasting meat from the kitchen browghe the fst warm ooxings of salva co mp mouth As we sat down, I remembered that on both Richard Prats Previous vss Mike had played a ite beting game with him over the cart, challenging him to name its breed and its vintage. Prat had replied thar thc should not be too dficale provided it was one of the great years. Mike had then bet him a ease of the wine in ‘question that he could not do it. Prat had accepted, and had won both umes. Tonight I fle sure tha the lee garme woal be played over agin, for Mike was quite willing to love the bet in order 10