BOILING A TEA-KETTLE

Which is the most trying to a woman – a green-horn of a servant girl, or a stove that “won’t draw” the day she expects company?

Mrs. Jones hired, the other day, a Miss McDermott, just from Cork.

• Miss McDermott was ordered to “Boil the tea-kettle.”

• “The What?”

• “The tea-kettle.”

• “An’ do you mane* that?”

• “Certainly. If I did not I would not have ordered you to do it – and be quick about it.”

• “Yes, marm.”

Miss McDermott obeyed orders. In about a half hour afterwards Mrs. Jones resumed the conversation.

• “Where’s the kettle, Bridget?”

• “In the dinner-pot, marm?”

• “In the what?”

• “In the dinner-pot. You told be to boil it, and I’ve had a scald on it for nearly an hour.”

Mrs. Jones could hear no more. She had a rush of blood to the head, and went into a swoon. The last we saw of her she was being carried up stairs in an arm-chair.

*mane = mean