EBOOK, THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH ***
Transcribed from the Charles Scribner's Sons "Works of Charles
Dickens" edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH
CHAPTER I--Chirp the First
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!
Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows that. I
wouldn't set my own opinion against the opinion of Mrs.
Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any account whatever.
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