While it wasn't meant to imply anything olfactory in nature, Gold did not know how long the soldier had been looking for him before finding him. Either way he is not gone long, so Gold is still in the process of cooking something simple on the stove. In a time where most people tended to live out of cans he tended to stubbornly keep to fresh foods when he needed to eat at all. The trouble was the last time he bought food, he had been fresh from spending most of his reserves in that base. So he just had a few little things left, but less than healthy or tasty things that he just hadn't whittled down to nothing yet. So soup from a can with some toast would the best he could offer.

"I will have to obtain more supplies in the morning," he explains, "but this should tide you over for now."

He busies himself with tidying after the small mess he made preparing so he has an excuse to give his back to him and think. Namely what he is going to do with him. This setup may suffice for the time being; it's not as though he hasn't kept a servant close by before. But a small flat is not a castle.