The next there would be a display of the cosmopolite and somewhat picturesque cookery of Mrs.Becker; there was her famous peccary pie, with ravansara sauce, followed by her delicious preserved mango and seaweed jelly.

Nor did she hesitate to draw upon the raw material of the colony now and then for a new hash or soup, taking care, however, to keep in view the maxim that prudence is the mother of safety--an adage that was rather roughly handled by the renowned French linguist, Madame Dacier, who, on one occasion nearly poisoned her husband with a Lacedemonian stew, the receipt for which she had found in Xenophon.
Luckily Becker's wife did not know Greek, consequently he ran no risk of being entertained with a classic dinner; but he was often reminded by his thoughtful partner of Meg Dod's celebrated receipt: before you cook your hare, first--catch it.
Sophia desired earnestly to have a share in the culinary government; but having shown on her first trial, too decided a leaning towards puddings and pancakes, her second essay was put off till she became more thoroughly penetrated with the value of the eternal precept _utile dulci_, which signifies that, before dessert it is requisite to have something substantial.
As soon as they had finished their afternoon meal, Willis departed on one of his customary mysterious excursions; and Jack, who, like the birds that no sooner hop upon one branch than they leap upon another, had also disappeared.

It was not long, however, before he made his appearance again; he came running in almost out of breath, and cried at the top of his voice, "I have discovered him!" "Whom ?" exclaimed half a dozen voices.
"The inhabitant of the moon ?" inquired Ernest.
"No." "I know," said Sophia playfully, "your go-cart and my doll." "No, I have discovered Willis' secret." "If you have been watching him, it is very wrong." "No, father; seeing some thin columns of smoke rising out of a thicket, I thought a bush was on fire; but on going nearer, I saw that it was only a tobacco-pipe." "Was the pipe alone, brother ?" "No, not exactly, it was in Willis' mouth; and there he sat, so completely immersed in ideas and smoke, that he neither heard nor saw me." "That he does not smoke here," remarked Becker, "I can easily understand; but why conceal it ?" "Ah," replied Mrs.Wolston, "you do not know Willis yet;--beneath that rough exterior there are feelings that would grace a coronet: he is, no doubt, afraid of leading your sons into the habit." "That is very thoughtful and considerate on his part." "He was always smoking on board ship, and it must have been a great sacrifice for him to leave it off to the extent he has done lately." "Then we shall not allow him to punish himself any longer; and as for the danger of contagion from his smoking here, that evil may perhaps be avoided." "Do not be afraid, father; it will not be necessary to establish either a quarantine or a lazaretto on our account." "Besides, any of the boys," said Mrs.Becker, "that acquire the habit, will, by so doing, voluntarily banish themselves from my levees." "It is an extraordinary habit that, smoking," observed Mrs.Wolston.
"Yes," said Becker; "and what makes the habit more singular is, that it holds out no allurements to seduce its votaries.

Generally, the path to vice, or to a bad habit, is strewn with roses that hide their thorns, but such is not the case with smoking; in order to acquire this habit, a variety of disagreeable difficulties have to be overcome, and a considerable amount of disgust and sickness must be borne before the stomach is tutored to withstand the nauseous fumes." "In point of fact," observed Wolston, "if, instead of being made part and parcel of the appliances of a fashionable man, cigars and meershaums were classed in the pharmacopoeia with emetics and cataplasms, there is not a human being but would bemoan his fate if compelled to undergo a dose." "Just so," added Becker; "the great and sole attraction of tobacco to young people consists in its being to them a forbidden thing; the apple of Eve is of all time--it hangs from every tree, and takes myriads of shapes.

If I had the honor of being principal of a college I should no more think of forbidding the pupils to use tobacco than I should think of commanding them not to use the birch for purposes of self-chastisement." "Perhaps you would be quite right." "Instead of lecturing them on the pernicious effects of tobacco, I should hang up a pipe of punishment in the class-room, and oblige offending pupils to inhale a fixed number of whiffs proportionate to the gravity of their delinquency." "An excellent idea," observed Wolston; "for it is often only necessary to show some things in a different light in order to give them a new aspect and value.