und out Ovide, who looked truly like an
emissary of the evil one among it all, as he stood with his wet
scarlet face, his feet buried in turkey feathers, and his arms up to
the elbows in a bowl of flour.

"Ovide!" I called, faintly.

When he saw me, a pleased, triumphant look lit up his face.

"Do you want to burn down the car?" I asked, shortly, when I got him
into the passage.

"Oh, no fear for dat," he answered in a somewhat patronizing tone.
"You know," he went on, good-naturedly, "big turkey can't be cook if
not have pretty good fire. But I'll open de window and den de fire
she'll all go out. For me, you know I'm not mind de heat, for I'm used
to dat when I fire de engine."

"But surely, Ovide, you will burn the turkey all up," I insisted, in a
milder tone--for, as I have already stated, I was in no wise an
authority on cooking, and from the patronizing way in which he spoke,
I began to feel that I had been interfering unnecessarily.

"Well," he replied ponderingly, "p'rhaps she do a little too quick,
and I'll tak her out; aldo she's only be in a few minute."

As I glanced at his flour-bedecked arms, he said, "Oh, yes, I'm find
de raisin, and de curran, and de peel, and lots powder, dat makes de
flour come big, and I'm mix dem all together when you come in, and we
going to have fine Creesmis puddin' sure. It's too bad, do, dat I find
a hole she's born in de bottom of de sospan, so dat I must put de
puddin' in de kettle, which has not got big mouth; but she's pretty
big around de middle, so I suppose de puddin' she's cook just as well
dare."

I was too bewildered by all this detail to pay much attention to what
he was saying about the smallness of the kettle's mouth; but I
remembered it vividly afterwards.

Nodding gaily to me, he hurried back to the oven, from which the blue
odorous smoke was still pouring. I lingered long enough to see him
take the turkey out of it, stand it on the shelf in the corner, and
then open the window.

As I passed Robbins, he let his paper flutter to his knee, and said,
meaningly: "I hope yon chap, sir, don't think he's still firing on the
engine."

As I smilingly shook my head and passed on, a presentiment of
approaching disaster took possession of me--so that the recollection
of the speaker's prophecies of evil regarding our cook did not come
back with that keen sense of humor one would have expected.

When I reached Fielding's side, he said anxiously, "I hope he is
ge