tea--and let it
boil. With some exceptions--owing to the fire going down, and Matilda
not hurrying up with coals--it boiled for an hour and a quarter. Then
Matilda came suddenly in and said, "I'm not going to have you messing
about in here with my saucepans"; and she tried to take it off the fire.
You will see that we couldn't stand this; it was not likely. I do not
remember who it was that told her to mind her own business, and I think
I have forgotten who caught hold of her first to make her chuck it. I am
sure no needless violence was used. Anyway, while the struggle
progressed, Alice and Dora took the saucepan away and put it in the
boot-cupboard under the stairs and put the key in their pocket.

This sharp encounter made every one very hot and cross. We got over it
before Matilda did, but we brought her round before bedtime. Quarrels
should always be made up before bedtime. It says so in the Bible. If
this simple rule was followed there would not be so many wars and
martyrs and law suits and inquisitions and bloody deaths at the stake.

All the house was still. The gas was out all over the house except on
the first landing, when several darkly-shrouded figures might have been
observed creeping downstairs to the kitchen.

On the way, with superior precaution, we got out our saucepan. The
kitchen fire was red, but low; the coal-cellar was locked, and there was
nothing in the scuttle but a little coal-dust and the piece of brown
paper that is put in to keep the coals from tumbling out through the
bottom where the hole is. We put the saucepan on the fire and plied it
with fuel--two _Chronicles_, a _Telegraph_, and two _Family Herald_
novelettes were burned in vain. I am almost sure the pudding did not
boil at all that night.

"Never mind," Alice said. "We can each nick a piece of coal every time
we go into the kitchen to-morrow."

This daring scheme was faithfully performed, and by night we had nearly
half a waste-paper basket of coal, coke, and cinders. And in the depth
of night once more we might have been observed, this time with our
collier-like waste-paper basket in our guarded hands.

There was more fire left in the grate that night, and we fed it with the
fuel we had collected. This time the fire blazed up, and the pudding
boiled like mad. This was the time it boiled two hours--at least I think
it was about that, but we dropped asleep on the kitchen tables and
dresser. You dare not be lowly in the night i