"_Egg!_" shouted Cookie indignantly, "three blessed eggs for your cake, and 2 1/2d. each, new laid too, and I only bought a dozen of 'em." "Yes, yes, Cookie dear. I meant three eggs, the number doesn't matter, and it won't take a minute for us to tell you. It's just this. Suppose a great big beautiful Lion came and sat in the middle of the raspberry canes just outside your kitchen door, what would you do?" "Is this a conundrum?" demanded Cookie. "If so, I don't know no answer to it, Master Ridgie." "It isn't a riddle, Cookie, at all. If a Lion really came to see you, what would you do?" "I should fetch a policeman at once," announced Cookie. Ridgwell smiled. "A policeman wouldn't be any good, Cookie! Really, you know, he couldn't do anything." "Then I should fetch two policemen," said Cookie, shortly and conclusively. Cookie, at this point in the argument, beat the three new-laids at such a furious rate, that the foam of them whirled round and round very much like the agitated thoughts of Cookie herself at being confronted with such an outrageous problem the first thing in the morning. "'Owever," amended Cookie, "afore I went to fetch them policemen, I'd throw all the boiling green water over him, from the window first, and see if that wouldn't shift 'im." Both Ridgwell and Christine laughed outright, the idea was too ridiculous. To think of their friendly and Pleasant-Faced Lal coming to make a society call and having boiling cabbage water thrown over his stately head, was altogether too much for their gravity. "How indignant he would be," laughed Ridgwell. "Oh! Chris only think how hurt he would feel as he shook the stuff off his mane and whiskers!" This imaginary picture, however, seemed to be too much for Christine, so she determined to speak seriously to Cookie. "Cookie," said Christine in her most earnest manner, "a lion may arrive outside this door (pointing to the article in question in a most impressive fashion) at any moment to-day." "Yes," added Ridgwell, "and we only want you to be prepared." Cookie's eyes seemed to boil a little faster for a moment, appeared to swell in fact and be altogether overdone, as she fixed her orbs upon the door in question, then up went Cookie's apron over her head, and alas! down went the three new-laid at 2 1/2d. each, all spilled upon the floor, and the cup broken as well. At this moment the children instinctively realised that discretion was sometimes the better part of valour, and made speedy preparations to vacate in favour of other quarters of the house, not, however, before they could hear Cookie moaning beneath her apron: