But he has learned to consider rudeness and
indignities as familiarities that entitle him to greater freedom: he
comforts himself, that those who treat and insult him pay for their
laughter, and that he keeps his money while they enjoy their jest.
His chief policy consists in selecting some dish from every course, and
recommending it to the company, with an air so decisive, that no one
ventures to contradict him. By this practice he acquires at a feast a
kind of dictatorial authority; his taste becomes the standard of pickles
and seasoning, and he is venerated by the professors of epicurism, as
the only man who understands the niceties of cookery.
Whenever a new sauce is imported, or any innovation made in the culinary
system, he procures the earliest intelligence, and the most authentick
receipt; and, by communicating his knowledge under proper injunctions of
secrecy, gains a right of tasting his own dish whenever it is prepared,
that he may tell whether his directions have been fully understood.
By this method of life Gulosulus has so impressed on his imagination the
dignity of feasting, that he has no other topick of talk, or subject of
meditation. His calendar is a bill of fare; he measures the year by
successive dainties.
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