"And pray why should I have all the dirty and dangerous work to do?" said Chisel again.
"What!" exclaimed the carpenter, in evident surprise. "Are you going to take a leaf out of the butcher's book, mate! It seems we commented upon your silence too soon; but if you are afraid to do the work; well let his teeth and claws remain. Thus the difficulty is got over with ease. After all, it is only a detail, and we will not come to loggerheads over a detail."
"There it is again," cried the butcher, "I swear I saw something like a hand spread out fan-shape towards me. The thumb was from me, and seemed attached to a human nose."
This was very terrible, and the conspirators felt a creepy sensation all over them. But the cook reassured them all, by saying, that very often people, whose stomachs were out of order, suffered from optical delusions. He said he felt sure Billy Cheeks must have eaten something that had disagreed with him; so they took no further notice, and proceeded with the business of the evening.
"Of course we shall want assistance; but we can count upon the Ojabberaways, they are always ready for anything in the shape of a row. They have their price, then we shall have the Hodges, and the Sikes with us. They are all ripe for action. Now another thing presents itself. We must have a head, no body can get along without a head."
"Some seem to get along very well without such a thing," said the cook. This also was sarcasm. The cook loved it, and his tongue it was said was as sharp as needles. "Well, my mates," he continued, "of course we must have a head; but mind you, let us have no hereditary fool to fill the office; and no baubles in the shape of crowns and court paraphernalia, no court flunkies, my lads, to eat the bread of idleness, no court pimps. I am dead against crowns. They are expensive articles, no matter upon whose head they rest. Kings too often are little better than blood suckers, and blood spillers, and all by the grace of God forsooth."
The subject of a head for the new commonwealth, or whatever it was to be called, was of so grave a nature that for some few minutes not one of the conspirators spoke. Evidently each one was revolving in his own mind as to upon whom the selection ought to fall, and no doubt each could have solved the momentous question to his own entire satisfaction; but modesty kept their thoughts locked up. Presently the carpenter spoke.
"It's a detail," he said. They all agreed, and so the matter dropped, not, however, before there had been a slight passage of arms between the carpenter and the cook. "Of course," said Chips, "you are out of the question, Pepper?"
"And why so, pray?" was the indignant reply. "I didn't say I would take the post if it were offered me; for I am not like some people I could mention, of an ambitious turn of mind. No matter who falls, so long as they mount." This must have hit the carpenter very hard.
"Whoever heard of a cook being made a ruler?" the carpenter asked.