Cricket on the hearth

the kettle began it! don't tell me what mrs. peerybingle said. i know better. mrs. peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of time that she couldn't say which of them began it; but, i say the kettle did. i ought to know, i hope! the kettle began it, full five minutes by the little waxy-faced dutch clock in the corner, before the cricket uttered a chirp. as if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the convulsive little haymaker at the top of it, jerking away right and left with a scythe in front of a moorish palace, hadn't mowed down half an acre of imaginary grass before the cricket joined in at all!