"Oh, it's all that nasty jester, sir, as won't keep up. It's only propped up now by two little deary pieces of firewood, a waiting to be burnt through and let it down again." Mary's angry master seemed to think the "nasty jester" was no joker; but a little examination soon enabled him to put the register right, and dispense with the "two little deary pieces of firewood;" but directly after Mr Dodd summoned the maiden to the dining-room, by apparently trying to play a tune upon some instrument, whose ivory mouthpiece projected from the wall. "No stove fire alight in the hall this morning, Mary?" said Mr Dodd, as his attendant brought, in some very badly made dry toast. "Won't burn a bit, sir," said Mary. "It's wuss than this, and smokes awful." "Did you turn the little knob by the pipe?" "No, sir, I didn't, sir." "Tutt--tutt--tutt," exclaimed Mr Dodd impatiently, as he went to the foot of the well staircase, opened the stove damper, and then stooped down to open the door and see whether a spark yet remained. It was well for Mr Dodd that he stooped as he did, for with a fearful crash down came a coal-scuttle from the second floor, striking from side to side of the well staircase, and bestowing upon the stooping gentleman's bald head a regular douche of knubbly coals, mingled with dust, while the copper scuttle itself fell upon the stove, and knocked off the pineapple knob which formed its apex. "Lawk-a-mercy, sir, what a good job as it wasn't the scuttle," exclaimed Mary, as her master shook himself free from the cheerful coal, and gazed up at the skylight at the top of the staircase, to see whence came the fearful shower, but only to find his eyes resting upon the fat, round, inanimate countenance of the page staring over the bannisters, perfectly aghast at the mischief. The explanation Mr Dodd sought was most simple. Mr Dodd had not yet fitted his house with a hydraulic lift, after the fashion of those used in our Brobdignagian hotels, but had contented himself with a crane and winch for drawing up coals and other loads. This machine, too, was a failure from the ignorance and apathy of the page, who was a regular grit in Mr Dodd's cog-wheels, and who this very morning, from some mismanagement, had nearly offered up his master as a sacrifice upon the altar of science. Under these untoward circumstances Mr Dodd went and acted in the most sensible of ways, that is to say, he went and washed himself; but it is not surprising that he should afterwards feel more gritty than ever when he sat down to partake of his matutinal coffee, made in a patent pot with an impossible name. He boiled his eggs, too, himself, by means of a small tin affair--patent, of course--in which a certain quantity of spirit of wine was burned, and when extinct the eggs were done.