My eldest hopeful, impelled by that spirit of enterprise and audacity characteristic of nine-year-old boys, had ventured to experiment with the kitchen automaton, and by sheer accident had effected a working connection between the battery and the indicator, and the machine, in “going off,” had given the boy a blow that made him feel, as he expressed it, “like a funny-bone all over.” “And served you right!” cried I. The thing was set for an hour and a half of work, according to the showing of the dial-plate, and no chance to stop it before I must leave for my office. Had the materials been supplied, we might have had breakfast; but, remembering the red-lettered “CAUTION,” we dared not supply materials while that indefatigable spoon was gyrating in the empty pan. For my distraction, Kitty, my daughter of seven years, now called to me from up-stairs: “Papa, you _better_ come, quick! _It’s_ a-tearin’ up these beds!” “My dear,” I sighed, “there’s no way to stop it. We’ll have to wait for the works to run down. I must call Harrison’s attention to this defect. He ought to provide some sort of brake.” We went up-stairs again. The B. G. Juliana stood beside the bed which she had just torn up for the sixth or seventh time, when suddenly she became, so to speak, paralyzed; her arms, in the act of spreading the sheets, dropped by her sides, her back stiffened, and she stood absolutely motionless, leaving her job unfinished--the B. G. would move no more until duly “set” again. I now discovered that I was hungry. “If that Fiend in the kitchen were only at work about something substantial, instead of whipping the air into imaginary omelettes!” I groaned. “Never mind,” said my wife; “I’ve a pot of coffee on the kerosene stove.” Bless her! She was worth a thousand Beneficent Geniuses, and so I told her. I did not return until late, but I was in good spirits, and I greeted my wife gayly: “Well, how do they work?” “_Like fiends!_” my usually placid helpmeet replied, so vehemently that I was alarmed. “They flagged at first,” she proceeded, excitedly, “and I oiled them, which _I_ am not going to do, ever again. According to the directions, I poured the oil down their throats. It was horrible! They seemed to me to _drink it greedily_.” “Nonsense! That’s your imagination.” “Very well,” said Anna Maria. “You can do the oiling in future. They took a good deal this morning; it wasn’t easy to stop pouring it down. And they worked--_obstreperously_. That Fiend in the kitchen has cooked all the provisions I am going to supply _this_ day, but still she goes on, and it’s no use to say a word.” “Don’t be absurd,” I remonstrated. “The thing is only a machine.” “I’m not so sure about that!” she retorted. “As for the other one--I set it sweeping, and it is sweeping still!”