‘Gallstones!’ and in the dimness he flung his arms apart so that the buttons of his tunic were torn away, one of them whizzing across the room and stunning a cockroach on the opposite wall. ‘Close your ranks and close your ranks and listen mosht attentivesome. Come closer then, my little sea of faces, come ever closer in, my little ones.’

The apprentices edged themselves forward, tripping and treading upon each other’s feet, the foremost of them being wedged against the wine-barrel itself.

‘Thatsh the way. Thatsh jusht the way,’ said Swelter, leering down at them. ‘Now we’re quite a happly little family. Mosht shelect and advanced.’

He then slid a fat hand through a slit in his white garment of office and removed from a deep pocket a bottle. Plucking out the cork with his lips, that had gripped it with an uncanny muscularity, he poured half a pint down his throat without displacing the cork, for he laid a finger at the mouth of the bottle, so dividing the rush of wine into two separate spurts that shot adroitly into either cheek, and so, making contact at the back of his mouth, down his throat in one dull gurgle to those unmentionable gulches that lay below.

The apprentices screamed and stamped and tore at each other in an access of delight and of admiration.

The chef removed the cork and twisted it around between his thumb and forefinger and satisfying himself that it had remained perfectly dry during the operation, recorked the bottle and returned it through the slit into his pocket.

Again he put up his hand and silence was restored save for the heavy, excited breathing.

‘Now tell me thish, my stenching cherubs. Tell me this and tell me exshtra quickly, who am I? Now tell me exshtra quickly.’

‘Swelter,’ they cried, ‘Swelter, sir! Swelter!’

‘Is that all you know?’ came the voice. ‘Is that all you know, my little sea of faces? Silence now! and lishen well to me, chief chef of Gormenghast, man and boy forty years, fair and foul, rain or shine, sand and sawdust, hags and stags and all the resht of them done to a turn and spread with sauce of aloes and a dash of prickling pepper.’

‘With a dash of prickling pepper,’ yelled the apprentices hugging themselves and each other in turn. ‘Shall we cook it, sir? We’ll do it now, sir, and slosh it in the copper, sir, and stir it up. Oh! what a tasty dish, Sir. Oh! what a tasty dish!’

‘Shilence,’ roared the chef. ‘Silensh, my fairy boys. Silence, my belching angels. Come closer here, come closer with your little creamy faces and I’ll tell you who I am.’

The high-shouldered boy, who had taken no part in the excitement, pulled out a small pipe of knotted worm-wood and filled it deliberately. His mouth was quite expressionless, curving neither up nor down, but his eyes were dark and hot with a mature hatred. They were half closed but their eloquence smouldered through the lashes as he watched the figure on the barrel lean forward precariously.