Honor of Thieves by Cutcliffe Hyne — Read

Mr. Theodore Shelf was a _gourmand_ of the first water. He preached most violently against all people who drank to excess, and seemed scarcely to discriminate between these and other people who were decorously moderate. He included them all in one sweeping anathema, and rammed home his charges with countless texts always once a Sunday, and usually on several weekdays as well. He was a powerful exhorter in his own particular narrow groove, was Mr. Theodore Shelf, and a vast number of people believed in him, and put out their savings to usury under his directions.

But he was, as I say, a _gourmand_ of note. He paid his _chef_ £300 a year, and would have thought himself permanently injured in constitution if his truffles by accident happened to be English, and not from Perigord Forest. He over-ate himself habitually, and made no particular disguise about it. There is no influential society to make a national sin of bestial over-feeding, or otherwise Mr. Theodore Shelf would doubtless have posed as an ascetic in public, and-kept biscuits and a jar of _foie gras_ beside the brandy-bottle in the safe. There wasn't a man in England who knew better how to get the votes of his clique, and their influence, and the handling of their money. There was not a man in Europe less inclined to mortify the flesh or undergo exertion without adequate return.