“Ah, water, but you see this is lemonade,” countered Lucille. “Home-made, too, and not—er—gusty. It doesn’t make you go——” and here it is regrettable to have to relate that Lucille made a shockingly realistic sound, painfully indicative of the condition of one who has imbibed unwisely and too well of a gas-impregnated liquor.
“No more does water in my experiants,” returned Cook, “and I was not allooding to wulgarity, Miss Lucy, which you should know better than to do such. My pore young sister’s systerm turned watery and they tapped her at the last. All through drinking too much water, which lemonade ain’t so very different either, be it never so ’ome-made…. Tapped ’er they did—like a carksk, an’ ’er a Band of ’Oper, Blue Ribander, an’ Sunday Schooler from birth, an’ not departin’ from it when she grew up. Such be the Ways of Providence,” and Cook sighed with protestive respectfulness….
“Tapped ’er systerm, they did,” she added pensively, and with a little justifiable pride.
“Were they hard taps?” inquired Lucille, reappearing from behind the flagon. “I hate them myself, even on the funny-bone or knuckles—but on the cistern! Ugh!”
“Hard taps; they was silver taps,” ejaculated Cook, “and drawed gallings and gallings—and nothing to laugh at, Master Dammicles, neether…. So don’t you drink no more, Miss Lucy.”
“I can’t,” admitted Lucille—and indeed, to Dam, who regarded his “cousin” with considerable concern, it did seem that, even as Cook’s poor young sister of unhappy memory, Lucille had “swole”—though only locally.
“Does beer make you swell or swole or swellow when you swallow, Cooker?” he inquired; “because, if so, you had better be—” but he was not allowed to conclude his deduction, for cook, bridling, bristling, and incensed, bore down upon the children and swept them from her kitchen.
To the boy, even as he fled via a dish of tartlets and cakes, it seemed remarkable that a certain uncertainty of temper (and figure) should invariably distinguish those who devote their lives to the obviously charming and attractive pursuit of the culinary art.
Surely one who, by reason of unfortunate limitations of sex, age, ability, or property, could not become a Colonel of Cavalry could still find infinite compensation in the career of cook or railway-servant.
Imagine, in the one case, having absolute freedom of action with regard to raisins, tarts, cream, candy-peel, jam, plum-puddings and cakes, making life one vast hamper, and in the other case, boundless opportunity in the matter of leaping on and off moving trains, carrying lighted bull’s-eye lanterns, and waving flags.