pretending you're sick this morning."

"All right!" came Jack's voice, cheerfully. "Certainly. No
need of your getting excited, though. You see, I really wasn't
hungry last night, or I'd have got supper."

"But we were hungry!" answered Ollie. "I don't think I was
ever much hungrier in my life; and then to get nothing but a pint
of gooseberries! I could eat my hat this morning!"

"I'm sorry," said Jack, coming out; "but I can't cook unless
I'm hungry myself. The hunger of others does not inspire me. I
gave you all there was. Your hunger ought to have inspired you to
do something with those gooseberries."

"I'd like to know what sort of a meal you'd have got up with
a can of gooseberries?"

"Why, my dear young nephew," exclaimed Jack, "if I'd been
awakened to action I'd have fricasseed those gooseberries, built
them up into a gastronomical poem; and made a meal of them fit
for a king. A great cook like I am is an artist as much as a
great poet. He--"

"Oh, bother!" I interrupted; "the gooseberries are gone.
There's the grouse Ollie shot yesterday. Do something with that
for breakfast."

Jack disappeared in the wagon, and began to throw grouse
feathers out the front end with a great flourish. The poor horses