"You're ravin', Clarence. You never come honest by six pairs of socks in all your life."
"I knows it," agreed the cook, humbly, "but I can wish, can't I?"
He added mysteriously: "Wishes come true sometimes."
"Yours won't. You been throwin' out them hints ever since I've knowed you—years now—and nothin' out of the ordinary ever happened to you unless might be that kittle of hot grease you pulled over on you."
"All the same," declared the cook plaintively, "maybe it'll pay you to be kind to me."
"I'll allus be kind to you, Clarence, so long as you let me have hot water and shave in the kitchen. By the way," carelessly, "have you heard Ben say whether he's goin' to the baile?"
"He hasn't took me into his confidence so far as that. Ben cuts quite a figger when he's dressed up."
Mr. Brindell looked gloomy. "Takin' ways with women is better nor gold nor silver."
The cook agreed with dark ambiguity:
"Right you are, and moth nor rust dothn't corrupt."
