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 very glad to see her, said, "Polly, my girl, help me out of this pickle."

"Don't touch him," cried cook.

"I'm sure, I shall!" returned Mary, "Why shouldn't I?"

"He has been the cause of all!" replied cook.

"Don't you mind her," said Judkins. "There, put your foot against the tub and take hold of my hands!"

Mary did so, and pulled him fairly up, and the tub rose with him; but he soon discarded that, and when he found himself free, he went boldly up to cook and asked her what she really meant.

"What do I mean," replied cook, who was, under present circumstances, somewhat more cautious; "why, this is what I mean—I mean to say that you or somebody else has been stuffing up my chimney."

"Stuffing up your chimney!" retorted Judkins. "Why you aint fit to live on a civilized scale. You took advantage of my position in society just now; but I tell you again and again you're a lunatic, and don't ought to breathe the same air as a Christian. Stop up your chimney! Why don't you go then and onstop it?"

"Cause, I don't want to be choked," replied cook.

"Choked!" echoed Judkins; "if you was choked, it would in my mind be a blessing." And he tried to rub his blade bones, but couldn't get near them, which was lamentable, seeing that they were painful in the extreme, for as they couldn't yield to the edge of the tub, and as the edge of the tub wouldn't yield an inch to them, the pressure had really been very severe.

"Well," said Mary, "what's to be done? Missis won't be long now afore she's up, and if she comes down and finds no breakfast ready for her, she won't be best pleased."

"Pleased! no more she don't ought," returned cook. "The very morning too she's going up to London. Do you think that I'd have such people about me? You'd better go round and light a fire in the parlour, and bile the kettle there. There's no chance of it's ever being biled in the kitchen. Did you ever see," she added, pointing fiercely to the smoke which still continued to rush in volumes into the garden.

"I shall have a pretty job after this. Every individual thing in the place will be smothered. But go, Mary, go and light a fire in the parlour."

And Mary for that purpose did go; and while cook was earnestly contemplating the smoke which, as the flames had expired, grew less and less dense, the unhappy man Judkins was silently invoking that spirit of ingenuity which he felt he had in him, with the view of replacing the bottom of the tub.

Scarcely, however, had he arrived at the conclusion that, if he could get it into the groove again it would hold, when Mary came rushing round the cottage, exclaiming, "It's just the same! they're all alike! the parlour's chock full of one solid mask of smoke."

"What," cried cook, glancing at Judkins significantly, "has he stuffed up the parlour chimney too?"