“I should think it was!”
“Well, you take the flour and put it in a basin, and moisten it with water; and you put in your plums and raisins and citron, and beat up half a dozen eggs and put them in too, and three glasses of brandy, and anything else that’s good you have got, and you knead it all up for a good bit, and put it in a cloth, and tie it up tight with a piece of string, and boil it as long as you can; all to-night and to-morrow and to-morrow night, and so right up to dinnertime.”
“It sounds pretty right,” said the first speaker, doubtfully; “but how do you know? Did you ever make one?”
“Why, I cannot say that exactly, but I have seen many made, and helped to stir them.”
“Lately?”
“Not so very, when I was a boy.”
“It would be a sinful waste to put sperrits into a pudding,” observed Macintosh. “It would all boil away, and no one be a bit the better.”
“No fear! Good liquor’s too scarce for that,” cried another.
“Brandy is a great improvement, when you have it, for all that,” maintained Kavanagh.
But though this part of his recipe sounded to all like the dissolving of Cleopatra’s pearls in her drink for wilful waste, the other items of it confirmed the previous opinion of the chief cook of the troop, and the precious ingredients were entrusted to his care. When they were well mixed, an unforeseen difficulty arose about a bag to boil it in; but that was met by the sacrifice of a haversack, and at last it was consigned to the gipsy kettle which was to bring it to perfection. If it were literally true that a watched pot never boils, this would have had a poor chance, for when off drill or duty next day every man ran to have a look at it; but the proverb happily fell through, and it bubbled away famously. Christmas-day dawned, and would have been hot in England for July.