"Breathes there a man with soul so dead" that he can read the great Brillat Savarin's account of the Cure's omelette unmoved? Short as the little story is, you feel yourself absolutely at table with the worthy padre, - a man of culture, and refinement. It is Friday, and the little banquet is kept strictly within the canons of the Church, yet there is an artist's hand apparent in its subtle simplicity. The fish soup, the trout, the omelette, the salad, the cheese, and dessert; the snowy cloth, the choice china, and the "old wine which sparkled in a crystal decanter," tell us plainly that science, and good taste, can make even a fast enjoyable. But amongst all the daintiness that marks the little banquet, that omelette is undoubtedly the prominent feature. You can see it, you can smell it, you can almost taste it.

Now, there is something cheering in this little chapter. We can throw ourselves back in our long arm-chair, and, with half closed eyes, make that very omelette, here in India. Or one so like it, that we need hardly lament our inability to procure carp's roes. This I hope presently to show you. There is another source of satisfaction in our musing, and that is, that with moderate forethought we ought never to be unable to make a good savoury omelette, whether in camp, at a traveller's bungalow, at a picnic, or in the privacy of our back verandah in cantonment. Eggs, though neither as cheap, nor as plentiful as in days of yore, are still to be got : we can obtain charcoal, and a broken chatty to hold it: we can get an iron omelette--ptm, made to order, in the bazar : we need never be without a tin of "Normandy," "Denmark," or "cow brand" butter; or, failing that, a bottle of the best salad oil. Salt, pepper, and a bottle of dried parsley ought not to be beyond our reach, and an onion is not an expensive luxury. Thus provided, we ought to be in a position to turn out a capital dish, very rapidly, at any time, and anywhere.

Omelettes, as you all know, can be diversified ad libitum: we need never, therefore, be afraid of falling back upon them.

Before I proceed to the discussion of omelette-making, however, Let me point out that Ramasamy has been led astray altogether with regard to this branch of his art. He sends yon up a very nice pudding, symmetrical in design, of a goodly consistency, and of a rich brown colour. You almost require a dessert-knife to help it. It is, of course, lighter somewhat, than a 'roly-poly' pudding made of paste, but it greatly resembles that homely composition. It is a first cousin of the pancake, and Rama-samy evidently uses the stuff of which it is made to coat his plantains when bidden to make fritters. He starts wrongly to commence with, when mixing his omelette. In addition to the eggs (the whites of which he whips separately) he puts in a little flour, some milk or a little water, and, in point of fact, makes a lightish sort of hatter. This, I regret to say, he vigorously whips, and fries in a fair amount of ghee, folding it into shape, and keeping it on the fire till it is nice and firm, and coloured as I before described. That this is no more an omelette than our old friend "the man in the moon" I need hardly assure you. Native cooks are nevertheless very easily taught how to make one properly, and rarely fail after a patient exemplification of the correct method.

I must confess that with the exception of "the Cure's omelette" previously alluded to, I never picked up a wrinkle concerning this excellent dish from a book. I have never come across a dissertation on omelette-making which seemed to have been written by a man who had made one himself. The manner in which I learnt, the little I know on the subject was as follows :- I was marching with a Regiment from Bangalore to Secunderabad. At a place called Pennaconda, in the Bellary District, I was most hospitably entertained by a Member of the Madras Civil Service. Though so far away from any civilized place, the dinner placed before me in the quondam public bungalow in which my host resided might have graced a petit table in the stranger's room of a London Club. His breakfast was an equally artistic meal, and was concluded by an omelette, - made on the spot, - by my accomplished friend himself. If this imperfect essay happen to catch his eye, he will, I am sure, forgive the honest tribute of his grateful pupil. Calling for a slop-basin, he broke into it four ordinary country fowl's eggs whole, and added the yolks only of two more. He thus had six yolks, and four whites. These he thoroughly mixed by using two forks : he did not beat them at all. When thoroughly satisfied that incorporation had been effected, he flavoured the mixture with a salt-spoonful of salt, a tea-spoonful of very finely minced shallot, a heaped up table-spoonful of minced curly parsley (grown in his garden) and - to crown all - a table-spoonful of really rich cream. He stirred this for a minute, and, as far as its first stage was concerned, the omelette was ready. We now left the dining-room for the verandah where there was a good charcoal fire in an iron brasier, (a half chatty would have sufficed of course) and upon it a pan about ten inches in diameter, very shallow, with a narrow rim well sloped outwards. A pat of butter was melted in the pan, sufficient in quantity to thoroughly lubricate the whole of its surface, and leave a coating of moisture about an eighth of an inch deep over all. As soon as ready, quite burning hot, - the butter having ceased to splutter, and beginning to brown, - with one good stir round, the mixture was poured into the pan. At the moment of contact, the underpart of omelette formed, this was instantly lifted by the spoon, and the unformed portion allowed to run beneath it; the left hand, holding the pan, and playing it, as it were, from side to side : With one good shake, the pan (in less than a minute from the time of commencing operations) was Lifted from the fire, and its cntents rolled off into the hot silver dish at hand to receive in which a Little melted butter, with some minced parsley and shallot, had been prepare 1. The omelette, as it rolled of its own accord from the pan, caught up, and buried within it. the slightly unformed juicy part of the mixture which still remained on the surface; and, as it lay in the dish, was without any special shape, of a golden yellow colour. Becked with green, with the juicy part escaping from beneath its folds.