"I leave if they do," said the Doctor. "I have seen too much of the effects of amateur cookery in my profession to want any of it. They are good cooks in theory, but not in practice." "There you have it!" said the Idiot, triumphantly. "Right in a nutshell. That's where the cooks are always weak. They have none of the theory and all of the practice. If they based practice on theory, they'd cook better. Wherefore let your theoretical cooks seek out the practical and instruct them in the principles of the culinary art. Think of what twelve ladies could do; twelve ladies trained in the sewing-circle to talk rapidly, working five hours a day apiece, could devote an hour a week to three hundred and sixty cooks, and tell them practically all they themselves know in that time; and if, in addition to this, twelve other ladies, forming an auxiliary guild, would make dresses and bonnets and things for the same cooks, instead of for the cannibals, it would keep them good-natured." "Splendid scheme!" said the Doctor. "So practical. Your brain must weigh half an ounce." "I've never had it weighed," said the Idiot, "but, I fancy, it's a good one. It's the only one I have, anyhow, and it's done me good service, and shows no signs of softening. But, returning to the cooks, good-nature is as essential to the making of a good cook as are apples to the making of a dumpling. You can't associate the word dumpling with ill-nature, and just as the poet throws himself into his work, and as he is of a cheerful or a mournful disposition, so does his work appear cheerful or mournful, so do the productions of a cook take on the attributes of their maker. A dyspeptic cook will prepare food in a manner so indigestible that it were ruin to partake of it. A light-hearted cook will make light bread; a pessimistic cook will serve flour bricks in lieu thereof." "I think possibly you are right when you say that," said the Doctor. "I have myself observed that the people who sing at their work do the best work." "But the worst singing," growled the School-master.