THE COOKED BOOTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5847, 25 December 1879, Page 3

THE COOKED BOOTS.

. The following yarn is by an old Australian stock-rider, and taken down phonographically 1 “ Well, you see, on them Australian stations, the cook—he’s everybody—a sort of general roust-about in most places. ■ And they can pile it on to him,- sometimes, I can assure you. At one station I was on the cook left, and the boss badto sendto townforanewman. Thisnewcook engaged to do the cooking—and that only—he was a regular professed. cook, he was. Well, the boss had to make a virtue of necessity, so he says to the new hand, “ I engage you to do the cooking, and I don’t want you to do anything but your work.” “ All right, sir,” says he, “ 111 take particular care about that.” ' 'After he had been there a while, the daughter came into the kitchen one day, and says she, “Cook!” “Yes, miss.” “ Mar-r wants tosee you.” “ All right, miss, I’ll be ' there directly.” * When he went in to see the missus, she had on the table a large trap, piled up with boots and shoes, of all sorts and sizes, that hadn’t been cleaned since the last Jemmy Ducks left. “ Cook, I wish you to do these boots, if you please.” “ But, marm,” says the cook, “I can’t do them.__ I don’t know how. I never tried.” “But the last cook that was here used to do them for me,” says the missus. So they kept barneying there for a while, the cook still protesting that he couldn’t do them. At last the missus tries a bit of bounce. . “ But, you know, cook, you must do them. What did we engage you for 1” “ Oh,” thought the cook to himself, “ is that it, old woman t I'll soon let you know all about

that.” That’s what he says to himself, mind yon ; he didn’t t-d! her that. he “AH right, marm ; I'll d<» the best X can with them.” The conk t,ak s the tray of hoots into the kitchen, and puts them on the table. Then he gets a large iron boiler, puts all the boots into it, and fills it up with water, puts the lid on, and in.nLfs on to boil. After they had been stewing away there for about a couple of hours, in comes the daughter again “ G»ok.” “Yes, miss.” u Are boots done?” The cook gets hold of his long iron fork, and commences poking away at the boots, “ No, miss, they are not done yet. I’ll fetch them in presently.” Of course she didn’t know he was boiling them, so she returned to her raar-r to report progress. So, after a while, he forks out all these boots, steaming hot, strains the water off them, and puts them on the tray again. He then takes them to the missus’s room, leaves them there, aud returned to the kitchen. And there was a “row in the houso that day, I can assure you. The missus was going to discharge him immediately, if not sooner. But, when the bo ; s came nmne that night, says he, “It serves you right, your own fault ; didn’t I +f -1! you he wouldn t do anything but cooking ? He told you he could not do them. Anything you want cooked, he'll do it for you ; that’s what he has engaged for—and he has cooked your boots, right enough.” W, H. W.