The kitchen fire was at its last glimmer; but it showed a better supper than even last night, for the Cook had had friends with her, a brother and two cousins, and they had been exceedingly merry. The food they had left behind was enough for three Brownies at least, but this one managed to eat it all up. Only once, in trying to cut a great slice of beef, he let the carving knife and fork fall with such a clatter, that Tiny the terrier, who was tied up at the foot of the stairs, began to bark furiously. However, he brought her her puppy, which had been left in a basket in a corner of the kitchen, and so succeeded in quieting her. After that he enjoyed himself amazingly, and made more marks than ever on the white tablecloth--for he began jumping about like a pea on a trencher, in order to make his particularly large supper agree with him. Then, in the absence of the cat, he teased the puppy for an hour or two, till, hearing the clock strike five, he thought it as well to turn into a mouse again, and creep back cautiously into his cellar. He was only just in time, for Muff opened one eye, and was just going to pounce upon him, when he changed himself back into a Brownie. She was so startled that she bounded away, her tail growing into twice its natural size, and her eyes gleaming like round green globes. But Brownie only said, "Ha, ha, ho!" and walked deliberately into his hole. When Cook came downstairs and saw that the same thing had happened again--that the supper was all eaten, and the tablecloth blacker than ever with extraordinary footmarks, she was greatly puzzled. Who could have done it all? Not the cat, who came mewing out of the coal cellar the minute she unlocked the door. Possibly a rat--but then would a rat have come within reach of Tiny? "It must have been Tiny herself, or her puppy," which just came rolling out of its basket over Cook's feet. "You little wretch! You and your mother are the greatest nuisance imaginable. I'll punish you!" And quite forgetting that Tiny had been safely tied up all night, and that her poor little puppy was so fat and helpless it could scarcely stand on its legs--and so was unlikely to jump on chairs and tables, she gave them both such a thrashing that they ran howling together out of the kitchen door, where the kind little kitchen maid took them up in her arms. "You ought to have beaten the Brownie, if you could catch him," said she in a whisper. "He'll do it again and again, you'll see, for he can't bear an untidy kitchen. You'd better do as poor old Cook did, and clear the supper things away, and put the odds and ends safe in the larder; also," she added mysteriously, "if I were you, I'd put a bowl of milk behind the coal-cellar door." "Nonsense!" answered the young Cook and flounced away. But afterwards she thought better of it, and did as she was advised, grumbling all the time, but doing it.