"Yes," I said. "I was calculating the other day that I've baked more
than 400 loaves a year for the last fifteen years. That's more than
6,000 loaves of bread. They can put that on my tombstone."
"The art of baking bread is as transcendent a mystery as the art of
making sonnets," said Redbeard. "And then your hot biscuits--they
might be counted as shorter lyrics, I suppose--triolets perhaps.
That makes quite an anthology, or a doxology, if you prefer it."
"Yeast is yeast, and West is West," I said, and was quite surprised
at my own cleverness. I hadn't made a remark like that to Andrew in
five years.
"I see you are acquainted with Kipling," he said.
"Oh, yes, every governess is."
"Where and whom did you govern?"
"I was in New York, with the family of a wealthy stockbroker. There
were three children. I used to take them walking in Central Park."
"Did you ever go to Brooklyn?" he asked abruptly.
"Never," I replied.
"Ah!" he said. "That's just the trouble. New York is Babylon;
Brooklyn is the true Holy City.
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