‘No more do I,’ said Miss Muffet. ‘I knew we should agree.’ ‘Then why do you eat them?’ asked David. ‘For fear the spider should get them. Don’t you adore my tuffet? It’s the only indoor tuffet in the world. All others are out-door tuffets. But they gave me this one because most spiders are out-of-door spiders. By the way, we haven’t been introduced yet. Where’s that silly butler?’ ‘Here,’ said the butler. He was lying down on the floor now, and staring at the ceiling. ‘Introduce us,’ said Miss Muffet. ‘Say Miss Muffet, David Blaize—David Blaize, Miss Muffet. Then whichever way about it happens, you’re as comfortable as it is possible to be under the circumstances, or even above them, where it would naturally be colder.’ ‘I don’t quite see,’ said David. ‘Poor Mr. Blaize. Put a little curds and whey in your eyes. That’s the way. Dear me, there’s another pun.’ [Illustration: David calls on Miss Muffet] ‘You made it before,’ said David. ‘I know. It counts double this time. But as I was saying, a little curds and whey—oh! it’s tipped up again. What restless things curds are!’ She had not been looking at her bowl, and for several minutes now a perfect stream of curds and whey had been pouring from it over her knees and along the floor, to where the butler lay. He was still repeating, ‘Miss Muffet, David Blaize—David Blaize, Miss Muffet.’ Sometimes, by way of variety, he said, ‘Miss Blaize—David Muffet,’ but as nobody attended, it made no difference what he said. ‘It always happens when I get talking,’ she said. ‘And now we know each other, I may be permitted to express a hope that you didn’t expect to find me a little girl?’ ‘No, I like you best as you are,’ said David quickly. ‘It isn’t for want of being asked that I’ve remained Miss Muffet,’ said she. ‘And it isn’t from want of being answered. But give me a little pleasant conversation now and then, and one good frightening away every night, and I’m sure I’ll have no quarrel with anybody; and I hope nobody hasn’t got none with me. How interesting it must be for you to meet me, when you’ve read about me so often. It’s not nearly so interesting for me, of course, because you’re not a public character.’ ‘Does the spider come every night, or every day, whatever it is down here?’ asked David. ‘Yes, sooner or later,’ said Miss Muffet cheerfully, ‘but the sooner he comes, the sooner I get back again, and the later he comes the longer I have before he comes. So there we are.’ She stopped suddenly, and looked at the ceiling. ‘Do my eyes deceive me?’ she whispered, ‘or is that the s——? No; my eyes deceive me, and I thought they would scorn the action, the naughty things. Perhaps you would like to peep at my furniture underneath the sheets. It will pass the time for you, but be ready to run back to the tuffet, when you hear the spider coming. Really, it’s very tiresome of him to be so late.’