Brownies:  We’ll steal it! (Singing.)

  Whist, whist, whist! 
    Here comes the Brownie man,
  The Christmas pie is made to-night
    We’ll steal it if we can! 
  Whist, whist, whist! 
    The scullions will be fled! 
  Oh! what a time we’ll have to-night
    When everyone’s in bed!

(They dance off R. Music changes to a bright march.  Enter the Kitchenmaid and Cooklet.  The Kitchenmaid is a short, fat, rosy, brisk little girl.  The Cooklet is a lanky, lazy, sentimental-looking girl.  The Kitchenmaid carries pasteboard, with pie-disk, rolling-pin, basin of pastry, mince meat, etc., and enters staggering under her burden.  The Cooklet carries a small basin with three apples and a knife, and eats apples as she peels them.)

Kitchen:  Oh, my eye and Betty Martin!  What a pie we’re going to make to-night!  Now look sharp, Cooklet, and peel the apples, for the head cook will be here in half a minute, and the Princess, too, to give the final stir-about; and if things aren’t ready for her, we shall have our heads chopped off.  Oh, dearie, dearie, dearie, dear! (Takes apples from Cooklet and peels them briskly.)

Cooklet (sitting on stool, yawning):  Ah, it’s all very well for the Princess!  Nothing to do but eat and sleep all day.  I wish I were she!

Kitchen:  My word!  I thank my stars I’m not!  There she sits all day with those stuck-up ladies, who rule her and fool her and manage her and bully her till she can’t call her soul her own!  And all the nice young princes who come riding to the castle are sent away without getting so much as a peep at her, because her ladies are so afraid she’ll marry one, and then their turned-up noses would be out of joint!

Cooklet:  They tell the princes that the Princess is too weary to be troubled with them!

Kitchen:  Trouble, indeed!  She’d find it no trouble to choose a sweetheart from those nice young men if she were allowed to see them, but she’ll never do that, if her ladies have a word in the matter! (Furious talking outside.)

Kitchen:  Oh dearie, dearie, dearie, dear!  If it isn’t the head cook!  And oh, my stars, what’s happened?

(Enter Head Cook, angrily.  Kitchenmaid and Cooklet both stand trembling with fright.)

Head Cook:  Nevaire did I hear such impertinence.  Who has gone, do you sink?  Who has packed up their traps and left me to-night—­to-night of all nights!  Ze night I make ze Christmas pie!  Ze night ze Princess comes with all her ladies to give ze final stir-about!  Who?  Vat?  Ven?  Vy?  Vy?? vy???

Cooklet and Kitchen (falling on their knees, clasping their hands entreatingly):  O sir, pray calm yourself!

Head Cook (dancing about with rage, and shouting):  Calm!  I am nevaire so perfectly calm in my life!  My scullions have gone!  Zey vill not vatch ze pie!  Because zey fear ze Brownies!