ll
discharge duties for which they were not engaged, in a manner for which
no one would have given them credit; and the disturbance will be less
and less each time, till by and by, at the sound of the crockery
smashing below, Lady Croesus will just look up to papa and say:

"My dear, I am afraid Sarah has got another fit."

And papa will say she will probably be better again soon, and will go on
reading his newspaper.

In course of time the whole thing will come to be managed automatically
downstairs without any references either to papa, the cerebrum, or to
mamma, the cerebellum, or even to the _medulla oblongata_, the
housekeeper. A precedent or routine will be established, after which
everything will work quite smoothly.

But though papa and mamma are unconscious of the reflex action which has
been going on within their organisation, the kitchen-maid and the cells
in her immediate vicinity (that is to say, her fellow-servants) will
know all about it. Perhaps the neighbours will think that nobody in the
house knows, and that, because the master and mistress show no sign of
disturbance, therefore there is no consciousness. They forget that the
scullery-maid becomes more and more conscious of the fits if they grow
upon her, as they probably will, and that Croesus and his lady do show
more signs of consciousness, if they are watched closely, than can be
detected on first inspection. There is not the same violent
perturbation that there was on the previous occasions, but the tone of
the palace is lowered. A dinner-party has to be put off; the cooking is
more homogeneous and uncertain, it is less highly differentiated than
when the scullery-maid was well; and there is a grumble when the doctor
has to be paid, and also when the smashed crockery has to be replaced.

If Croesus discharges his kitchen-maid and gets another, it is as though
he cut out a small piece of his finger and replaced it in due course by
growth. But even the slightest cut may lead to blood-poisoning, and so
even the dismissal of a kitchen-maid may be big with the fate of
empires. Thus the cook--a valued servant--may take the kitchen-maid's
part and go too. The next cook may spoil the dinner and upset Croesus's
temper, and from this all manner of consequences may be evolved, even to
the dethronement and death of the King himself. Nevertheless, as a
general rule, an injury to such a low part of a great monarch's organism
as a kitchen-maid has no impor