"Peggy wasn't eating; she was only going to eat," said Terry. "Never mind, Peg-top. Thor shan't tease you. Which'll you have? Say quick," and he pulled forward the sugar-basin and the salt-cellar in front of his sister.
"Sugar, pelease," said Peggy. "It's so 'told this morning."
At this Thor burst out laughing.
"What a Peggy-speech," he said. "Sugar's no warmer than salt."
"Yes," said Baldwin, solemnly, from the other end of the table. "'Tis. There's sugar in toffee and in jam, and they're hot, leastways they're hot to be made. And there's salt in ices, for mamma said they're made with salt."
"What rubbish!" said Thor. "Nurse, isn't it rubbish? And when did you ever see ices, I'd like to know, Baldwin?"
"I did," Baldwin maintained. "Onst. But I'll not tell you when, if you say rubbish."
"It is rubbish all the same, and I'll prove it," said Thor. "You know that nice smooth white sugar on the top of bridescake?—well, they ice that to put it on—I know they do. Don't they, nurse?"
"They call it icing, to be sure," nurse replied. "But that's no proof that ices themselves mayn't be made with salt, Master Thor, for when you come to think of it ices have sugar in them."
"To be sure they have," Thor cried, triumphantly. "Nurse has proved it—that sugar's no warmer than salt," which was not what nurse had intended to say at all.