After dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling Bowl. As I'm
a living man, hoping to keep so, for a year or two, he sang it
through.
And, by-the-by, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, just as he
finished the last verse.
There was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without
saying with your leave, or by your leave, with something heavy on
his head. Setting this down in the middle of the table,
symmetrically in the centre of the nuts and apples, he said:
'Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and as he hasn't got no use for the
cake himself, p'raps you'll eat it.'
And with those words, he walked off.
There was some surprise among the company, as you may imagine.
Mrs. Fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, suggested that
the cake was poisoned, and related a narrative of a cake, which,
within her knowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies, blue.
But she was overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by May,
with much ceremony and rejoicing.
I don't think any one had tasted it, when there came another tap at
the door, and the same man appeared again, having under his arm a
vast brown-paper parcel.
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