? We were speaking of cooks,
and we conclude with a pathetic little allegory about a suspender-button
and a baby that is not only teased but spanked."

"The baby could get the same spanking for reasons based on the
shortcomings of the cooks," said the Idiot. "I am irritated when I am
served with green pease hard enough to batter down Gibraltar if properly
aimed; when my coffee is a warmed-over reminiscence of last night's
demi-tasse, I leave the house in a frame of mind that bodes ill for the
junior clerk, and the effect on the baby is ultimately the same."

"And--er--you'd have the ladies whose energies are now devoted towards
the clothing of the heathen come here and do the cooking?" queried the
School-master.

"I leave if they do," said the Doctor. "I have seen too much of the
effects of amateur cookery in my profession to want any of it. They are
good cooks in theory, but not in practice."

"There you have it!" said the Idiot, triumphantly. "Right in a nutshell.
That's where the cooks are always weak. They have none of the theory and
all of the practice. If they based practice on theory, they'd cook
better. Wherefore let your theoretical cooks seek out the practical and
instruct them in the principles of the culinary art. Think of what
twelve ladies could do; twelve ladies trained in the sewing-circle to
talk rapidly, working five hours a day apiece, could devote an hour a
week to three hundred and sixty cooks, and tell them practically all
they themselves know in that time; and if, in addition to this, twelve
other ladies, forming an auxiliary guild, would make dresses and bonnets
and things for the same cooks, instead of for the cannibals, it would
keep them good-natured."

"Splendid scheme!" said the Doctor. "So practical. Your brain must weigh
half an ounce."

"I've never had it weighed," said the Idiot, "but, I fancy, it's a good
one. It's the only one I have, anyhow, and it's done me good service,
and shows no signs of softening. But, returning to the cooks,
good-nature is as essential to the making of a good cook as are apples
to the making of a dumpling. You can't associate the word dumpling with
ill-nature, and just as the poet throws himself into his work, and as
he is of a cheerful or a mournful disposition, so does his work appear
cheerful or mournful, so do the productions of a cook take on the
attributes of their maker. A dyspeptic cook will prepare food in a
manner so indigestible that it were