kettle. The burden of the song was still the same; and louder,
louder, louder still, they sang it in their emulation.

The fair little listener--for fair she was, and young: though
something of what is called the dumpling shape; but I don't myself
object to that--lighted a candle, glanced at the Haymaker on the
top of the clock, who was getting in a pretty average crop of
minutes; and looked out of the window, where she saw nothing, owing
to the darkness, but her own face imaged in the glass. And my
opinion is (and so would yours have been), that she might have
looked a long way, and seen nothing half so agreeable. When she
came back, and sat down in her former seat, the Cricket and the
kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of
competition. The kettle's weak side clearly being, that he didn't
know when he was beat.

There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, chirp,
chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum--m--m! Kettle making
play in the distance, like a great top. Chirp, chirp, chirp!
Cricket round the corner. Hum, hum, hum--m--m! Kettle sticking to
him in his own way; no idea of giving in. Chirp, chirp, chirp!
Cricket fresher than ever. Hum, hum, hum--m--m! Kettle slow and
steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket going in to finish him.
Hum, hum, hum--m--m! Kettle not to be finished. Until at last
they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry, helter-skelter,
of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and the Cricket
hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, or they both
chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer head than
yours or mine to have decided with anything like certainty. But,
of this, there is no doubt: that, the kettle and the Cricket, at