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but I gathered they were amiable enough. Julius charmed them into disposing of their furniture and letting him install his acquisitions in their dining room; and they seem to have put up with his tame raven—no cage—French bulldog and the cat who as least likely to mind town or climate had been chosen to go to Bonn with Jules. And he persuaded them to keep geese. Such intelligent animals, he never failed to say, so rewarding. He was shocked by the crammer's food and asked leave to accompany the maid to market. And there he went, six foot one, booted, gloved and hatted like Apollo, buying fish, teaching to choose vegetables. Still, grey roasts continued to appear in baths of flour gravy, potatoes were boiled without their jackets, the haricots verts were sliced. . . . Julius bought a spirit lamp; found that he could cook; took over. The old Baron sent a man from Landen every week with game, smoked meats, proper bread, butter, pears; and he wrote advice. Always consider Texture . . . Order Every Step beforehand in your Mind . . . Make yourself master of the Basic Culinary Processes, and you will be free to do Anything . . . My grandfather held decided views; in his youth he had known and corresponded with the great Chefs Cuisiniers of the Empire and the Bourbon Restaura-tion, and he was the author of a slim brochure entitled, Quelques Remarques sur la Theorie du Braisage des Mets, which had been dedicated to Careme and which is a lucid and still useful manual.
    Of course Julius had money troubles. His board and tuition were paid for him quarterly; he had a letter of credit from his father—enough for a young man to live on as he should, and it was presumed that he would run up some bills. He kept a horse, brought from Landen, and a trap, looked after by a boy also from Landen, who was

    boarded at the crammer's too. A barber came to shave Julius in the morning, and to brush his hair; a local tailor pressed his suits, and his linen was looked after by the women of the house. He saw to his own boots. Julius did not squander, but his ordinary needs were not cheap, and he certainly did not have enough left over for starting a collection. If he knew about prices, he knew nothing about finance: various people were disposed to accommodate him and he made some rather injudicious debts.
    He sought no company at Bonn. When he was not travelling he spent the evening playing piquet and bezique with his crammer, to whom he had taught these games. The crammer's idea had been that they might use the time for study.
    "After dinner" said Julius.
    The crammer, conscientiously, wrote to Landen. The old Baron, who addressed him as Monsieur le Precepteur, sent a dozen of Madeira and a note to the effect that his son was not an Encyclopaedist but an homme du monde, books at night Unhealthy and Exaggerated, time of no Moment, and instruction to be pursued at a Rational pace. After this plea, probably unique in his career, the crammer appears to have settled down to a long stretch of geese-training, haute cuisine, period furniture and games of chance, with the rest of his establishment given over to the care of Julius's clothes. What happened to his standing with the University of Bonn, what was his treatment of his subsequent pupils, indeed whether he found any, I do not know. It was not the kind of question my father would have understood.
    Julius's mould set early. His range and frame were already fixed at Bonn. In his own mind that period of his life became his student days, and in fact he had yet to accumulate that knowledge of the objects of five centuries, find scope to feed his tastes, acquire more things in more places with more means, increase his skills—but the tastes

    and skills remained the same. They were the lines that enclosed his nature and laid out the always repeated pattern of the coming years: the daily care spent on his person and its setting; the existence built with money, unease over money; the guards against intrusion;