Of the Roast on the Day of Long Sleeping

Upon the Day of Long Sleeping — that one day in seven when the tall ones rise late, when the house fills from the morning with the greatest of all the warm smells, and when even the rolling box stays home — there is prepared a thing of bone and meat the like of which is not seen on lesser days.

I hold, and proclaim, that the bone of that day belongs to the Floor.

I am aware of the doctrine raised in opposition. It is said, in a low and busy voice, that the bone is wanted for the stock. I have inquired into the stock. I find it to be a brown water, kept for reasons no one will state plainly, into which a bone of unimpeachable quality is made to disappear and from which it does not return. This is not a use. This is a vanishing.

A bone given to the Floor is honoured. A bone given to the stock is merely lost more slowly. I know which the bone would choose, having discussed the matter with it at length, in private, beneath the high country of the table.