156 “COME DUCK SHOOTING WITH ME” 
did at the beach. The cook was parboiling them in the 
kitchen preparing to make a coot pie for dinner. As 
luck would have it, my wife was at home, and before 
the cooking progressed very far she came into the 
kitchen and said to the cook, ‘This house smells like a 
soap factory, what is the matter?’ The cook told her 
and my wife promptly ordered the coot thrown away. 
Now I had promised the cook two dollars for her trouble 
if the coot pie was served for dinner and was wondering 
what would happen. It was a foggy night outside and 
a little misty that evening in the dining-room, but look- 
ing through the mist when I sat down to dinner, I could 
see a beefsteak on the table. Now I ask you, what 
would you do under such circumstances?”’ 
‘I’m a married man,’’ answered George; ‘‘I believe 
I’d eat the steak.”’ 
‘Well, that’s just what I did,”’ replied the blonde 
gentleman, ‘‘ate the steak and said nothing.” 
Then Peaked Cap tilted his chair up against the wall 
and with a preliminary cough announced that though 
coot meat might be strong and tough, his grandmother 
could make a coot pie to the queen’s taste. 
‘“How does she do it?’”’ said I. 
‘It’s all in knowing how,”’ said Peaked Cap wisely. 
‘‘First I skin the birds, cutting off the legs and wings. 
Most of the fat goes with the skin, but I am careful to 
scrape off any that is left as most of the disagreeable 
aroma in cooking comes from the fat. Then I cut each 
coot into six pieces ready for parboiling. My share of 
the business ends there and grandma takes hold. The 
first thing she does is to put two quarts of large-sized 
gravel in a big covered stewpan together with pieces 
of coot and a large handful of salt, and puts it on the 
stove to simmer.”’ 
