I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you

I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you

I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you

But here, now, I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you, as Cheap Jack says I’ll give you a receipt by which you shall live a hundred years, and begin your second century a deal stronger than you began your first. Buy your meal from the meal-shop no, not the chemist, my dear taste it to make sure it has no “nip;” see, also, that it is fresh, and not ground before Culloden, and buy it neither too fine nor too round, but just a happy medium. Having thus caught your hare, so to speak, go home with it, and put a saucepan on a clear fire, with a pint of beautiful spring-water, into which throw a teaspoonful, or more, of salt, and a dessert spoonful of oatmeal. This is essential. Then sit down and read till the water boils. Now take your “spurckle” or “whurtle” in your right hand I don’t know the English of “spurckle” or “whurtle,” but it is a round piece of wood, rather thicker than your thumb and not so long as your arm, and you never see it silver-mounted and commence operations. You stir in the meal very gradually, to prevent its getting knotted, and you occasionally pause to let it boil a moment, and you continue this until the porridge is quite thick, and the bubbles rise into small mountains ere they escape, with a sound between a “whitch” and a “whirr,” which is in itself a pleasure to listen to. And now it is ready, and you have only to pour it into a large soup-plate, sprinkle a little dry oatmeal over the top of it, and set it aside until reasonably cold. You eat it with a spoon not a fork and with nice sweet milk. “A dish fit for a king,” you say; “A dish fit for the gods!” I resound. Now, having told you all this, I feel I have well deserved of my country; and I’m not above accepting a hamper at any time.