to myself, as I cooled down, (for the young gentlemen luckily went
away with their dear mama,)--says I to myself, 'It's a very fine
thing, no doubt, to go about in ribbons, and petticoats, and grand
clothes; but, if one must needs carry such a poor, silly head inside
them, as Missus does, I'd rather stop as I am, and be a cook with
some sense about me.'

"I don't say, my dears," continued the supposed cook, "that I spoke
very politely just then; but who could feel polite, when their dinner
had been put back at least half-an-hour over such nonsense as that?
Missus used to say the 'dear boys' came to the kitchen on a wet day,
because they'd got NOTHING ELSE TO DO! Nothing else to do! and had
learnt Latin and Greek, and all sorts of schooling besides! So much
for education, thought I. Why, it would spoil the best lads that
ever were born into the world. For, of course, you know if these
young gentlemen had been put to decent trades, they'd have found
something else to do with their fingers besides mischief and waste.
And, dear me, I talk about not having been polite to Missus just
then, but now you tell me, dears, what Missus, with all her
education, would have said if she'd been in my place, when one young
gentleman was drinking her custard, and another young gentleman was
pulling her pans on the floor! Do you think she'd have been a bit
more polite than I was? Wouldn't she have called me all the stupid
creatures that ever were born, and told the story over and over to
all her friends and acquaintance to make them stare, and say there
were surely no such simpletons in the world as ladies and gentlemen,
and ladies' and gentlemen's young ladies and young gentlemen?

"However, I did not go as far as that, because, you see, I had some
sense about me, and could make allowances for all the nonsense the