MD3PAD 370-372

[Toby G Levy]

        Armand the chef faces a roomful of what he considers barbarians
and tells his "Iliad of Inconvenience."

        Chapter 37 begins on page 371 and contains the story of Armand
Allegre, chef at the Inn by Octarara creek.

        Armand was youngest of four brothers and at a young age
apprenticed to a great Chef in Paris.  Eventually he became a celebrated
chef himself. One day a well known detective visited him in his rooms.

        Here Armand sees Mason and Dixon enter the room and asks them if
they know the famed scientist Jacques de Vaucanson.  Dixon recalls after
some thought that he is "The Lad with the mechanickal Duck." Vauucanson
built his duck in the mid 1730s.

        Armand says that Vaucanson actually gave the duck the ability to
excrete feces.  And it was this attention to detail that enabled the
Duck to metamorphise from inanimate to animate.

Toby