“But he wasn’t the only one.  There was little Whipper-snapper, his younger brother, squeaking out in another corner, ’I shan’t make a pie, James, I shall make toffey; it’s far better fun.  You’d better come and help me.  Where’s the treacle pot, Cook?  Cook!  I say, Cook! where’s the treacle-pot?  And look at this stupid kettle and pan.  What’s in the pan, I wonder?  Oh, kidney-beans!  Who cares for kidney-beans?  How can I make toffey, when all these things are on the fire?  Stay, I’ll hand them all off!’

“And, sure enough, if I hadn’t rushed from Master James, who was drinking away at my custard out of the bowl, to seize on Whipper-snapper, who had got his hand on the vegetable-pan already, he would have pulled it and the kettle, and the whole concern, off the fire, and perhaps scalded himself to death.

“Then, of course, there comes a scuffle, and Master Whipper-snapper begins to roar, and out comes Missus, who, poor thing, had no more sense in her head than her sons, though she’d never been to school to lose it over Latin and Greek; and, says she, with all her ribbons streaming, and her petticoats swelled out like a window-curtain in a draught—­says she:-

“‘Cook!  I desire that you will not touch my children!’

“‘As you please, ma’am,’ says I, ’if you’ll be so good as to stop the young gentlemen from touching my pans, and—­’ I was going to say ‘custard,’ but Master James shouts out quite quick:-

“‘Why, I only wanted to make a pie, mamma.’

“‘And I only wanted to make some toffey!’ cries Whipper-snapper; and then mamma answers, like a duchess at court:-

“’There can’t possibly be any objection, my dears; and I wish, Cook, you would he a little more good-natured to the children;—­your temper is sadly against you!’

“And out she sails, ribbons and window-curtains and all; and, says I to myself, as I cooled down, (for the young gentlemen luckily went away with their dear mama,)—­says I to myself, ’It’s a very fine thing, no doubt, to go about in ribbons, and petticoats, and grand clothes; but, if one must needs carry such a poor, silly head inside them, as Missus does, I’d rather stop as I am, and be a cook with some sense about me.’

“I don’t say, my dears,” continued the supposed cook, “that I spoke very politely just then; but who could feel polite, when their dinner had been put back at least half-an-hour over such nonsense as that?  Missus used to say the ‘dear boys’ came to the kitchen on a wet day, because they’d got nothing else to do!  Nothing else to do! and had learnt Latin and Greek, and all sorts of schooling besides!  So much for education, thought I. Why, it would spoil the best lads that ever were born into the world.  For, of course, you know if these young gentlemen had been put to decent trades, they’d have found something else to do with their fingers besides mischief and waste.