The cook did not deign to make any direct reply, but, as she left the speaking-tube and went back to the range, she said, loud enough to be heard by the servants in the sitting-room adjoining, "As though I did not know anything! I will never have another place if a black man is butler." In the room under the pantry a sharp, wiry boy was grinning. "They're allus havin' spats, ain't they, them two? If I was Cato I wouldn't let no Dutch cook sass me, even if I was a nigger, would you?" "Who is this young cub, when he's at 'ome?" asked the clean-shaven, trim-looking young British valet. "He's Tim," answered the Irish laundress. "I'm Tim," said the boy, indignantly, "that's who I am, and I'm as good as you are, too, for all you belong to a lord! And you needn't put on no frills with me, neither, for when I'm a year or two older I can lick ye!--see?" "Don't ye mind the boy, Mr. Parsons," the Irish girl intervened. "He's no call here at all, at all. He'd run of an errand belike in the mornin' and does be sthrivin' to make himself useful. That's why they kept him here the night." "I've got just as good a right here as he has," the boy declared, "and he doesn't come here after you either, Maggie--you're not his steady. It's that French Elise he is sparkin'." "An' greatly I care if he is! Sparkin', in truth! Bad cess to yer impidence," said the pleasant-faced laundress, drawing herself up. "A man, is it? It's lashins and lavins of men I could have if I'd a mind." Fortunately the cook called Tim at this juncture and gave him a chore to do; and so left the Irish girl and the young Englishman alone. The valet had been standing until then with his hat and cane in his hand and his overcoat across his arm. Now he laid these things on the table and took his seat by the side of the comely Irishwoman. "Mam'zelle," he began, "is a French girl, of course, and I never could abide a foreign lingo. Now it's a pleasure for me to hear you talk, Miss Maggie." "Ah, do be aisy, now, Mr. Parsons," she returned, coquettishly. "It's gospel truth," he rejoined. "I enjoy talkin' to you. You keep your eyes wide open and can always tell me what's goin' on!" "Troth, can I?" replied the laundress. "I know which ind of the egg the chicken'll be after chippin'--every time." "Then tell me who's dinin' 'ere to-night," the valet asked. Before she could answer the whistle sounded faintly again, and the cook immediately brought in the green-turtle soup in the handsome silver tureen, and sent it up on the dumb-waiter. Then she returned at once to the kitchen. "It's not a big dinner," the Irishwoman explained. "There's only eight of them. There's us three, isn't there?--Mr. and Mrs. Van Allen and Miss Ethel. Then there's your lord--and I'll go bail it's Miss Ethel he's after now? He'll be the lucky man if he gets her, too; it's a sweet angel she is."