Muff

“ As usual, the fickle, unreasoning world took Muff Potter to its bosom and fondled him as lavishly as it had abused him before. But that sort of conduct is to the world’s credit; therefore it is not well to find fault with it. ”

“ Then the lady held the umbrella over his head, and he looked up into her face. She was a sweet, womanly lady, but not exactly the kind of mistress Bumper had pictured belonging to.
"He is a dear little thing," the lady said, taking him in her arms and rubbing his back. "And so friendly! Why, he's trying to cuddle up under my arm."
The fact was, Bumper was trying to get in her muff away from the dripping umbrella. He [Pg 26] made a dive for the nearest open end, and squeezed all but his tail through. ”

“ So she shouldered the thorn, and poised herself once more upon the edge of the bowl.
The Spider was still struggling, but more feebly, and Miss Muffet could hear him muttering to himself, "Grey, threaded with silver and sparkling dewdrops, oh, my masterpiece!"
"No!" she said, flinging the spear down on the tuft behind her. "I can't kill him. What does it matter if I turn into a mortal. I have never done any work or made a masterpiece. Let him eat me if he likes. ”

“ Out of the barn dropped the Spider, close down beside her.
"Can you tell me where the best dewdrops——" he began. But Miss Muffet only looked once in his direction, and then fled as fast as her wings could carry her.
Trembling, she reached the gooseberry bush, and then, all of a sudden, her wings failed her.
"Oh dear," she cried. "I have run away, and been a coward. If I don't do something very brave at once I shall start turning into a mortal. ”

“ Who is Muffin?" asked Lily, feeling as if she had seen both these little people before, and liked them.
"He was Ginger Snap once, but he's a Muffin now. We begin in that way, and work up to the perfect loaf by degrees. My name is Johnny Cake, and she's Sally Lunn. You know us; so come on and have a race." ”

“ Miss Muffett wears a pink dress, with a thin white overdress, with low, round neck and elbow sleeves. The neck, sleeves and bottom of over-slip are edged with ruffles. The slip is caught up a little to show the pink skirt. High under her arms is a broad pink sash, tied in a big bow behind. She has a full mob-cap of the white over pink, with a wired frill, and a pink ribbon passing around crown, and tied in a bow at side or front. Her stockings are pink or white, her shoes white. She carries a spoon. ”

“ Women were muffled up in furs and carried huge muffs, their wide hats tied down under their chins with great bows, some wearing the silken mask, in much the fashion of a veil, to protect their skins from frosty touches. ”

“ The use of mufflers, which are, in fact, respirators, has been known for ages; and Dr.Hales, more than a century ago, recommended a scientifically made muffler for persons obliged to enter into places where noxious gases were given off. ”

“ But what should King Muffin do but skip up to the Princess while she was still smoothing out her skirts. (Yellow organdie, my dear, and it musses when you sit on it.) Muffin made a low bow and kissed her hand. Then he asked her for the first dance. It was so preposterous that a jester should ask her to dance at all, that everyone said it was the funniest thing he had done, and they went into a gale about it on the marble stairway. Even Queen Zooks, who ordinarily didn't laugh much at jokes, threw back her head and laughed quite loud—but in a minute, when everybody else was done. ”

“ The mouth of the muffle, and the entry for introducing fuel to the fire, should be on opposite sides, to prevent as much as possible the admission of dust into the muffle, whose mouth should be closed with double folding-doors of iron, furnished with small peep-holes, to allow the artist to watch the progress of the staining, and to withdraw small trial slips of glass, painted with the principal tints used in the picture. ”

“ Miss Muffet could not object to this, because it was the kind she liked best herself.
"I never have been so much afraid of giants," she said, "since I learned about their diseases. They are not nearly so strong as they look. There was Giant Despair,—'in sunshiny weather he fell into fits.' It was while he was having a fit, you know, that Christian and Hopeful got away. ”

“ At length Eustace's circulation was declared restored and the three set about harnessing themselves for the war, encasing their legs in sand-bags, winding endless mufflers round their heads and donning innumerable odd overcoats, so that their final appearance was more that of apple-women than scouts. ”

“ He even wiggled the rug for fear that there might be a trapdoor beneath.
"Did the Princess love King Muffin? Of course she did. But she wasn't going to let him know it all at once. Ladies never do things like that. So she looked indifferent, as though she might yawn at any moment. Despite that, King Muffin told her what was on his mind, and when he was finished, he looked for an answer. But she didn't say anything, but just sat quiet and pretended there was a button off her dress. So King Muffin told it again, and moved up a bit. ”

“ No one is allowed to idle in this house."
So Little Miss Muffet, though she felt like crying and was very tired, kept at her work until at length all was finished and the last cheese was in the press.
"Now," said the farmer's wife, "since you have worked so well I shall give you a dish of curds and whey for your supper, and you may go out into the orchard and eat it under the shade of the trees."
Little Miss Muffet had never eaten curds and whey before, and did not know how they tasted; but she was very hungry, so she took the dish and went into the orchard. ”

“ Than this mischance is crueller, and that is for a jeweller
To strike but paste in what he fondly thought to be a stone.
27
THE EMBARRASSING EPISODE
OF
LITTLE MISS MUFFET
Little Miss Muffet discovered a tuffet,
(Which never occurred to the rest of us)
And, as 'twas a June day, and just about noonday,
She wanted to eat—like the best of us:
Her diet was whey, and I hasten to say
It is wholesome and people grow fat on it.
The spot being lonely, the lady not only
Discovered the tuffet, but sat on it. ”

“ The ears are so small as to be concealed by the hair, and the muffle is hairy as in sheep and goats. The flesh is coarse grained, but of variable quality, some individuals being tender and of good flavor, while others are tough and so musky as to be uneatable. ”

“ In my day a muffler was something a man wore round his neck; but your mufflers would serve to clothe a whole platoon from head to heel with something left over. Benevolence is all very well, but you shouldn't overdo it. There isn't a soldier alive who wouldn't trip over your mufflers. Think of him tripped up by a muffler and caught by a German."
"Lady French," said Helen, "wrote in her letter to The Times that every muffler was to be two yards and a half long and twelve inches broad." ”

“ For the hat, cut a circle of tissue-paper the color of the dress, put a little paste in the centre, and pinch it down on the top loop of Miss Muffet's hair, tipping it a little to one side. This will give a crown. Turn up the brim at the back and lift it in front to stand out straight. Fringe a small piece of black paper for a feather and paste it to the crown of the hat.
Peter White
Fig. 153—Peter White.
is sturdy compared with the other people (Fig. 153) . He came from the cherry tree and is ten inches high. ”

“ Muffs sang back to him.
“I’m a great discoverer,” he said, sliding out of the tree and leaning against its trunk. “My name’s Tommy Tyler.”
“And I’m Miss Muffet. I’m staying with the dragons who live at the end of this road. Didn’t you see the big sign, BEWARE OF DRAGONS? That means Mr. and Mrs. Lippett.”
“I live at the other end,” said Tommy, “with Mom and Daddy and Great Aunt Charlotte and Donald and Mary and the baby.”
“My! What a lot of people!” Muffs exclaimed. “In my family there’s only Mother and me. Daddy went off and left5 us when I was just three years old. ”

“ He gave his daughter away on the glorious First; and Muffin wore her new mauve on that occasion. In the opinion [420] of all qualified persons it was quite as successful as the peerless original. Polly, who took after her papa, and had more intellect than all the rest of the family put together, Dickie and Doggo included, looked charmingly proper in a “costume” more reticent than Muffin’s. Her young man assisted the Dean of Dunstable, the uncle of the bride, in performing the ceremony. ”

“ At least, according to Muffin’s thrilling narrative of her adventures upon the Cambrian railway, she had found herself at a quarter to eleven the previous night at a place called Llan-something, where they have the mountains, with only four shillings and ninepence in her chain purse, together with a return ticket from Dwygyfy, and a canary in a wicker cage, which she had brought from Slocum Magna for Aunt Caroline.
However, “All’s well that ends well,” as Shakespeare says. Muffin accepted the situation in the philosophical spirit for which she had already acquired a reputation. ”

“ A muffle of this size will contain 6 to 18 kilogrammes of green ultramarine. The temperature is gradually raised to a gentle red heat, each muffle being provided in front with an iron plate which prevents the cooling of the contents by the external air. When the charge in the muffles is carefully observed, it is noticed that the blue colour first appears at the surface and the edges, i.e., at those places where the oxygen of the air has unrestricted access. The mass is frequently turned over with an iron rake, in order to expose all parts to the action of the air ”

“ She had no mercy. He looked at her neck and thought how he would like to jab it with the knife he had for his muffin. He knew enough anatomy to make pretty certain of getting the carotid artery. And at the same time he wanted to cover her pale, thin face with kisses. ”

“ Inside the building Pop dozed in his favorite position, his feet crossed on a shaky pine table and his chair tipped back against the wall. Slow hoof-beats, muffled by the sand, sounded outside, followed by the sudden, faint jingling of spurs, the sharp creak of saddle gear and the soft thud of feet on the ground. Pop's eyes opened and he blinked at the bright rectangle of sunny street framed by his doorway, where a man loomed up blackly, and slowly entered the room. ”

“ The little counter being so short a counter that it leaves the fireplace, which would have been behind it if it had been longer, accessible, Mr Wegg sits down on a box in front of the fire, and inhales a warm and comfortable smell which is not the smell of the shop. ‘For that,’ Mr Wegg inwardly decides, as he takes a corrective sniff or two, ‘is musty, leathery, feathery, cellary, gluey, gummy, and,’ with another sniff, ‘as it might be, strong of old pairs of bellows.’
‘My tea is drawing, and my muffin is on the hob, Mr Wegg; ”

“ A gaudy scheme of large, and what I should call floppy, roses against a green trellis suddenly caused me to remember the mumps. There had been roses on the wall opposite my infantile pallet — thirty-two roses across and seventeen roses up and down — and when you squinted your eyes, every second rose had the face of an old lady in a turban and a tippet. The mumps is a tedious disease and aggravated, rather than in the least degree ameliorated, by a continuous process of counting seventeen up and down and thirty-two across. ”

“ Get up that combination—a hot day, a dank, humid, and suffocating greenhouse given up to the musk-plant, and you will have the full effect of only one full-blown musky. The odour of the plant, heavy when close, is delicate when diffused; the scent of the musk-rat, on the other hand, is heavy when diffused, and insupportable when near. The marvellous diffusibility of this odour is illustrated in many ways. It has long been maintained that the musk-rat has only to pass over a closely corked bottle of wine to destroy its contents. ”

“ In the middle ages, mummings were very common. Mumm is said to be derived from the Danish word mumme, or momme in Dutch, and signifies to disguise oneself with a mask: hence a mummer; which is properly defined by Dr. Johnson to be a masker, one who performs frolics in a personated dress. The following verse occurs in Milton's Samson Agonistes, line 1325:
Jugglers and dancers, antics, mummers, mimics. ”

“ HANNER WITH THE MUMPS.
"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the mumps."
"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with these mumps. These mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said." ”

“ Aubanus, writing of mumming in Germany, says that “in the Saturnalia there were frequent and luxurious feastings amongst friends, presents were mutually sent, and changes of dress made: that Christians have adopted the same customs, which continue to be used from the Nativity to the Epiphany: that exchanges of dress too, as of old among the Romans, are common, and neighbours by mutual invitation visit each other in the manner which the Germans call mummery.” Christmas was the grand season for mumming in England. ”

“ Have the goodness to describe the complaint of children called Mumps.
The mumps, inflammation of the “parotid” gland, is commonly ushered in with a slight feverish attack. After a short time, a swelling, of stony hardness, is noticed before and under the ear, which swelling extends along the neck toward the chin. This lump is exceedingly painful, and continues painful and swollen for four or five days. At the end of which time it gradually disappears, leaving not a trace behind. The swelling of mumps never gathers. It may affect one or both sides of the face. ”