'Yes.'
'Good heavens.'
'Or a woman. It could have been either. They both taste the same.'
&
nbsp; 'Well - now you really do surprise me,' the youth declared.
'One lives and learns.'
'Indeed one does.'
'As a matter of fact, we've been getting an awful lot of it just lately from the butcher's in place of pork,' the cook declared.
'Have you really?'
'The trouble is, it's almost impossible to tell which is which. They're both very good.'
'The piece I had just now was simply superb.'
'I'm glad you liked it,' the cook said. 'But to be quite honest, I think that was a bit of pig. In fact, I'm almost sure it was.'
'You are?'
'Yes, I am.'
'In that case, we shall have to assume that you are right,' Lexington said. 'So now will you please tell me - and here is another hundred dollars for your trouble - will you please tell me precisely how you prepared it?'
The cook, after pocketing the money, launched out upon a colourful description of how to roast a loin of pork, while the youth, not wanting to miss a single word of so great a recipe, sat down at the kitchen table and recorded every detail in his notebook.
'Is that all?' he asked when the cook had finished.
'That's all.'
'But there must be more to it than that, surely?'
'You got to get a good piece of meat to start off with,' the cook said. 'That's half the battle. It's got to be a good hog and it's got to be butchered right, otherwise it'll turn out lousy whichever way you cook it.'
'Show me how,' Lexington said. 'Butcher me one now so I can learn.'
'We don't butcher pigs in the kitchen,' the cook said. 'That lot you just ate came from a packing-house over in the Bronx.'
'Then give me the address!'
The cook gave him the address, and our hero, after thanking them both many times for all their kindnesses, rushed outside and leapt into a taxi and headed for the Bronx.
8
The packing-house was a big four-storey brick building, and the air around it smelled sweet and heavy, like musk. At the main entrance gates, there was a large notice which said VISITORS WELCOME AT ANY TIME, and thus encouraged, Lexington walked through the gates and entered a cobbled yard which surrounded the building itself. He then followed a series of signposts (THIS WAY FOR THE GUIDED TOURS), and came eventually to a small corrugated-iron shed set well apart from the main building (VISITORS' WAITING-ROOM). After knocking politely on the door, he went in.
There were six other people ahead of him in the waiting-room. There was a fat mother with her two little boys aged about nine and eleven. There was a bright-eyed young couple who looked as though they might be on their honeymoon. And there was a pale woman with long white gloves, who sat very upright, looking straight ahead, with her hands folded on her lap. Nobody spoke. Lexington wondered whether they were all writing cooking-books, like himself, but when he put this question to them aloud, he got no answer. The grown-ups merely smiled mysteriously to themselves and shook their heads, and the two children stared at him as though they were seeing a lunatic.
Soon, the door opened and a man with a merry pink face popped his head into the room and said, 'Next, please.' The mother and the two boys got up and went out.
About ten minutes later, the same man returned. 'Next, please,' he said again, and the honeymoon couple jumped up and followed him outside.
Two new visitors came in and sat down - a middle-aged husband and a middle-aged wife, the wife carrying a wicker shopping-basket containing groceries.