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‘All right,’ said the clown, and took his share of the soldiers and calmly put them all in the middle of the red-hot coals. ‘I want to be quite sure they can stand fire first,’ he explained; and then, as they melted, he said, ‘There, you see, they’re all running away. I never see such cowards.’

Tommy was in a great rage, and could almost have cried, if it had not been babyish, for they were his best regiments which he could see dropping down in great glittering stars on the ashes below. ‘That’s a caddish thing to do,’ he said, with difficulty; ‘I didn’t give them to you to put in the fire!’

‘Oh, I thought you did,’ said the clown, ‘I beg your pardon;’ and he threw the rest after them as he spoke.

‘You’re a beast!’ cried Tommy, indignantly; ‘I’ve done with you, after this.’

‘Oh, no, yer ain’t,’ he returned.

‘I have, though,’ said Tommy; ‘we’re not friends any longer.’

‘All right,’ said the clown; ‘when I’m not friends with any one, I take and use the red-‘ot poker to ’em,’ and he put it in the fire to heat as he spoke.

This terrified the boy. It was no use trying to argue with the clown, and he had seen how he used a red-hot poker. ‘Well, I’ll forgive you this time,’ he said hastily; ‘let’s come away from here.’

‘I tell you what,’ said the clown, ‘you and me’ll go down in the kitchen and make a pie.’

Tommy forgot his injuries at this delightful idea; he knew what the clown’s notion of pie-making would be. ‘Yes,’ he said eagerly, ‘that will be jolly; only I don’t know,’ he added doubtfully, ‘if cook will let us.’

However, the clown soon managed to secure the kitchen to himself; he had merely to attempt to kiss the cook once or twice and throw the best dinner service at the other servants, and they were left quite alone to do as they pleased.

What fun it was, to begin with! The clown brought out a large deep dish, and began by putting a whole turkey and an unskinned hare in it out of the larder; after that he put in sausages, jam, pickled walnuts, and lemons, and, in short, the first thing that came to hand.

‘It ain’t ‘arf full yet,’ he said at last, as he looked gravely into the pie.

‘No,’ said Tommy, sympathetically, ‘can’t we get anything else to put in?’

‘The very thing,’ cried the clown, ‘you’re just about the right size to fill up–my! what a pie it’s going to be, eh?’ And he caught up his young friend, just as he was, rammed him into the pie, and poured sauce on him.

But he kicked and howled until the clown grew seriously displeased. ‘Why carn’t you lay quiet,’ he said angrily, ‘like the turkey does? you don’t deserve to be put into such a nice pie!’

‘If you make a pie of me,’ said Tommy, artfully, ‘there’ll be nobody to look on and laugh at you, you know!’

‘No more there won’t,’ said the clown, and allowed him to crawl out, all over sauce. ‘It was a pity,’ he declared, ‘because he fitted so nicely, and now they would have to look about for something else;’ but he contrived to make a shift with the contents of the cook’s work-basket, which he poured in–reels, pin-cushions, wax, and all. He had tried to put the kitchen cat in too, but she scratched his hands and could not be induced to form the finishing touch to the pie.

How the clown got the paste and rolled it, and made Tommy in a mess with it, and how the pie was finished at last, would take too long to tell here; but somehow it was not quite such capital fun as he had expected–it seemed to want the pantomime music or something; and then Tommy was always dreading lest the clown should change his mind at the last minute, and put him in the pie after all.