‘Now lishen well,’ continued the voice, ‘and I’ll tell you exactly who I am and then I’ll shing to you a shong and you will know who’s shinging to you, my ghastly little ineffectual fillets.’

‘A song! A song!’ came the shrill chorus.

‘Firshtly,’ said the chef leaning forward and dropping each confidential word like a cannon ball smeared with syrup. ‘Firshtly. I am none other than Abiatha Swelter, which meansh, for you would not know, that I am the shymbol of both excellence and plenty. I am the father of exchellence and plenty. Who did I shay I was?’

‘Abafer Swelter,’ came the scream.

The chef leaned back on his swollen legs and drew the corners of his mouth down until they lost themselves among the shadows of his hot dewlaps.

‘Abiatha,’ he repeated slowly, stressing the central ‘A’. ‘Abiatha. What did I shay my name wash?’

‘Abiatha,’ came the scream again.

‘Thatsh right, thatsh right. Abiatha. Are you lishening, my pretty vermin, are you lishening?’

The apprentices gave him to understand that they were listening very hard.

Before the chef continued he applied himself to the bottle once again. This time he held the glass neck between his teeth and tilting his head back until the bottle was vertical, drained it and spat it out over the heads of the fascinated throng. The sound of black glass smashing on the flagstones was drowned in screams of approval.

‘Food,’ said Swelter, ‘is shelestial and drink is mosht entrancing – such flowers of flatulence. Sush gaseous buds. Come closer in, steal in, and I will shing. I will lift my sweetest heart into the rafters, and will shing to you a shong. An old shong of great shadness, a most dolorous piece. Come closer in.’

It was impossible for the apprentices to force themselves any closer to the chef, but they struggled and shouted for the song, and turned their glistening faces upwards.

‘Oh what a pleasant lot of little joints you are,’ said Swelter, peering at them and wiping his hands up and down his fat hips. ‘What a very drippy lot of little joints. Oh yesh you are, but so underdone. Lishen cocks, I’ll twisht your grandmas so shweetly in their graves. We’ll make them turn, my dears, we’ll make them turn – and what a turn for them, my own, and for the worms that nibble. Where’s Steerpike?’

‘Steerpike! Steerpike!’ yelled the youths, the ones in front twisting their heads and standing upon their toes, the ones in the rear craning forward and peering about them. ‘Steerpike! Steerpike! He’s somewhere here, sir! Oh there he is sir! There he is sir! Behind the pillar sir!’

‘Silence,’ bellowed the chef, turning his gourd of a head in the direction of the pointed hands as the high-shouldered boy was pushed forward.

‘Here he is, sir! Here he is, sir!’

The boy Steerpike looked impossibly small as he stood beneath the monstrous monument.