"How long must it bake?"
"There's the great thing after all. The bakin' 's the main pint. A potater puddin', of all puddin's, has got to be baked jest right. For if it bakes a leetle too much, it's apt to dry it up; and then agin if it don't bake quite enough, it's sure to taste potatery—and that spiles it, you know."
"How long should you think?"
"Wal, that depends a good deal on the heat o' your oven. If you have a very hot oven, 'twon't do to leave it in too long; and if your oven ain't so very hot, why, you'll be necessiated to leave it in longer."
"Well, how can I tell anything about it?"
"Why, I always let 'em bake till I think they're done—that's the safest way. I make it a pint to have 'em baked exactly right. It's very important in all kinds o' bakin'—cake, pies, bread, puddin's, and everything—to have 'em baked precisely long enough, and jest right. Some folks don't seem to have no system at all about their bakin'. One time they'll burn their bread to a crisp, and then agin it'll be so slack tain't fit to eat. Nothing hurts my feelin's so much as to see things overdone or slack-baked. Here only t'other day, Lorry, the girl that Miss Philpot dismissed yesterday, come within an ace o' letting my bread burn up. My back was turned a minnit, and what should she do but go to stuffin' wood into the stove at the awfullest rate? If I hadn't a found it out jest when I did, my bread would a ben spilt as sure as I'm a live woman. Jubiter Rammin! I was about as much decomposed as I ever allow myself to git! I told Miss Philpot I wouldn't stan' it no longer—one of us must quit—either Lorry or me must walk."
"So you've no rule about baking this pudding?"
"No rule!" said Mudlaw, with a look of intense surprise.
"Yes," said Mrs. Darling, "you seem to have no rule for anything about it."
"No rule!" screamed the indignant cook, starting up, while her red face grew ten times redder, and her little black eyes snapped with rage. "No rules!" and she planted herself in front of Mrs. Darling, erecting her fleshy figure to its full height of majestic dumpiness, and extending the forefinger of her right hand till it reached an alarming propinquity to that lady's nose. "No rules! do you tell me I've no rules! Me! that's cooked in the first families for fifteen years, and always gin satisfaction, to be told by such as you that I hain't no rules!"