ging with excitement.

"See! Monsieur," he exclaimed, almost superstitiously, as he halted at
my side and pointed to the mouth of the kettle, "see de size dat
puddin' she's now! When I'm put her in she's so small dat she's go in
easy; but now look! she's swell, and swell, and swell till she's fill
all de kettle inside, and now she's tree times too big for de mouth,
and she won't come out."

I glanced down, and true enough, the pudding had assumed alarming
proportions. Little wonder the problem of getting the thing intact out
of the kettle's small mouth had caused him such woful distress.

"Well," I said impatiently, "go pour off the water and take it out in
sections; if there is more pudding than you expected, so much the
better; there seems little chance of us getting anything else to eat."

As he was scudding away to carry out my instructions, Robbins, whose
sharp eyes had seen the freak in the kettle, said to Ovide in an
undertone, "Thou hast not forgotten, lad, to take the frost out of
that, anyway."

After a very brief absence, Ovide hurried back again, bearing aloft
the most marvellous pudding human eyes, I am persuaded, ever rested
upon. Apart from the pitiful manner in which it had been rent and torn
asunder, its complexion was such as to attract the most lively
interest--no chronic sufferer from jaundice ever sported such a
gorgeous yellow. The mystery of its unwonted complexion was solved
the moment he laid it on the table: the car was permeated with the
rank odor of baking powder.

Out of pure curiosity, I put a piece of the pudding into my mouth. It
was something awful! A spoonful of pure baking powder could not have
tasted much worse. It had been only partially cooked, too.

Fielding gave Ovide one look, and then, too full for speech, he pushed
back his chair and strode to the other end of the car.

Slowly I leaned back in my chair and fixed my eyes on the face of the
now thoroughly craven-looking Ovide. "What made you tell us you knew
how to cook?" I asked, trying hard to speak without anger, but in
utter failure. The cravings of the inner man, just then, were strong
upon me.

After all the fellow was not without some redeeming trait, for he made
a clean breast of it. "It is dis way," he began remorsefully, "when
I'm tak de job for cook to-day I'm tink, for sure, I know de way for
do it. De reason I get idea like dat, is this way: When I'm be little
boy and sit in de kitchen and see my mudder ba