"What is there to say?" answered August. "It will always be likely to happen with us soldiers." "It's a sin and a shame!" said the cook. "A 1," affirmed August. The Dutch clock ticked, the kettle bubbled. Friedrich let himself slide off the table, and stretched his arms. "I can't say that I am generally much in favour of these parades," he said, "but it is my opinion that to-day we servants might as well have joined it." "Yes; the young master always has the best of it," said the cook. "It is well to be out of range of the firing. If I had been in his place, I would have paraded them to-day." She smoothed down her apron. August shook his head. "With us military men, that would----" "Oh, stuff!" interrupted the cook. "Military here, military there! If any one dismissed my father, I should dismiss him, and that pretty sharp, too!" She gave her apron another energetic pull, stood up, walked to the hearth, turned the kettle round, and then, as that manifestly did not help matters, began to cry vehemently, from a sense of her helplessness. "Hullo!" said the lady's-maid, who just then stepped into the kitchen, "have the lamentations broken out here also?" She sat down on the stool from which the cook had risen, and stroked down her black silk apron as the other had her coarse kitchen one. "There, I've had enough of it! I can't stand playing at nursing old women who faint every time anything goes wrong in the house! And to be turned out of the room by the young lady because one treads too heavily, and told to send that stupid goose Pauline, doesn't suit me any better! And, moreover, I am not accustomed to a party once a fortnight at the outside, and now I suppose even that will come to an end! No, I thank you! To-morrow they may look out for another lady's-maid, if such like require another lady's-maid, indeed! And----" "There, I've had enough of that!" said the cook. "I may talk, I suppose, if I like!" said the lady's-maid. "But not in my kitchen!" cried the cook, sticking her still strong arms akimbo, and walking up to the audacious speaker. "What! you will talk about 'such like' here, in the face of an old, respected servant, who has been twenty years in the house, or eight years like August, to say nothing of Friedrich, although he also is a respectable man, and would rather have gone to the parade to-day than sit here and see such misery! Do you know who 'such like' are? All your tag and rag, from whom you ran off to us--they are 'such like,' with their yard-long trains, and fallals and crinolines! And you are 'such like,' you shameless hussy, you! and if you don't leave off grinning this very minute, and get up off my stool, and clear out of my kitchen, I'll give you a couple of boxes on the ear that will make you remember 'such like' to the end of your days!" "I shall not dispute with you," said the lady's-maid, getting up in haste, and slipping towards the door from under her antagonist's raised arm. "You are too----"