The Conscience Pudding by e Ne's Bitt. It was Christmas, nearly a year
after mother died. I cannot write about mother, but I will just say
one thing. If she had only been away for a little while and not
for always, we shouldn't have been so keen on having a Christmas. I
didn't understand this then, but I am much older now, and I think
it was just because everything was so different and horrid, we felt we must
do something, and perhaps we were not particular enough. What things make you
much more unhappy when you loaf about than when you were doing events. Father
had to go away just about Christmas. He had heard that his wicked partner
who ran away with his money, was in France, and he thought he
could catch him. But really he was in Spain, where catching criminals is
never practiced. We did not know this till afterwards. Before Father went away,
he took Dora and Oswald into his study and said, I'm awfully sorry
I've got to go away, but it is very serious business and I must
go. You'll be good while I'm away, kiddies, won't you? We
promised faithfully. Then he said, there are reasons you wouldn't understand if I
tried to tell you, but you can't have much for Christmas this year,
But I've told Matilda to make you a good plane pudding. Perhaps next Christmas
will be brighter. It was for the next Christmas saw us the affluent nephews
and nieces of an Indian uncle. But that is quite another story, As
good Old Kipling says, when father had been seen off at Lewisham Station with
his bags and a plaid rug in a strap, we came home again and
it was horrid. There were papers and things littered all over his room where
he had packed. We tidy the room up. It was the only thing
we could do for him. It was Dickie who accidentally broke his shaving glass,
and h O made a paper boat out of a letter. We found
out afterwards. Father particularly wanted to keep. This took us some time,
and when we went into the nursery the fire was black out and we could
not get it alight again, even with the whole daily chronicle. Matilda,
who was our general then, was out as well as the fire, so
we went and sat in a kitchen. There is always a good fire in
kitchens. The kitchen hearth rug was not nice to sit on, so we
spread newspapers on it. It was sitting in the kitchen. I think that
brought to our minds my father's parting words about the pudding. I mean,
Oswald said. Father said we couldn't have much of a Christmas for secret reasons,
and he said he had told Matilda to make us a plain pudding.
The plain pudding instantly cast its shadow over the deepening gloom of our young minds.
I wonder how plain she'll make it, Dickie said, as plain as
plain you may depend, said Oswald. Ah, here am I, where
are you pudding? That's her sort. The others groaned, and we gathered
closer round the fire till the newspapers rustled madly. I believe I could make
a pudding that wasn't plain if I tried. Alice said, why shouldn't we?
No chink, said Oswald, with brief sadness. How much would it
cost? Noel asked, and added that Dora had twopence and h O had
a French halfpenny. Dora got the cookery book out of the dresser drawer,
where it lay doubled up among clothes, pegs, dirty dusters, scallop shells,
string penny novelettes, and the dining room corkscrew the general we had.
Then it seemed as if she did all the cooking on the cookery book instead
of on the baking board. There were traces of so many bygone meals upon
its pages. It doesn't say Christmas pudding at all, said Dora. Try
plumb. The resourceful Oswald instantly counseled. Dora turned the greasy pages anxiously.
Plum pudding five one eight, are rich with flour five one seven, Christmas
five one seven, cold brandy sauce for two four one. We shouldn't care
about that, so it's no use looking good without eggs five one eight plain
five one eight. We don't want that anyhow. Christmas five one seven,
that's the one. It took her a long time to find the page.
Oswald got a shovel of coals and made up the fire. It blazed up
like the devouring elephant the Daily Telegraph always calls it. Then Dora read Christmas
plum pudding. Time six hours to eat it in, said h O.
No silly to make it forge a head, Dora. Dickie replied. Dora
went on twenty seventy two one pound and half of raisins, half a pound
of currants, three quarters of a pound of breadread crumbs, half a pound
of flour, three quarters of a pound of beef suet, nine eggs,
one wine glassful of brandy, half a pound of citron and orange peel,
half a nutmeg, and a little ground ginger. I wonder how little ground
ginger a tea cupful would be enough, I think, Alice said, we
must not be extravagant. We haven't got anything yet to be extravagant with,
said Oswald, who had toothache that day. What would you do with the
things? If you've got them? You'd chop the suet as fine as possible.
I wonder how fine that is, replied Dora. And the book together,
and mix it with the bread, crumbs and flour. Add the currants,
washed and dried, not starched, then, said Alice. The citron
and orange peel cut into thin slices. I wonder what they call thin.
Matilda's thin bread and butter is quite different from what I mean by it.
And the raisins stoned and divided. How many heaps would you divide them into?
Seven? I suppose, said Alice, one for each person and one
for the pot I mean pudding. Mix it all well together with the grated
nutmeg and ginger, then stir in nine eggs well beaten, and the brandy.
We'll leave that out, I think, And again, mix it thoroughly
together that every ingredient may be moistened. Put it into a buttered mold,
tie over tightly and boil for six hours. Serve it ornamented with holly and
brandy poured over it. I should think holly and brandy poured over it would
be simply beastly, said Dickie. I expect the book knows. I dare
say holly and water would do as well. Though this pudding may be made
a month before, it's no use reading about that. Though, Because we've
only got four days to Christmas, it's no use reading about any of it,
said Oswald, with thoughtful repeatedness. Because we haven't got the things,
and we haven't got the coin to get them. We might get the tins
somehow, said Dickie. There must be lots of kind people who would subscribe
to a Christmas pudding for poor children who hadn't any Noel said, well,
I'm going skating at Pen's, said Oswald, it's no use thinking about puddings.
We must put up with it plain. So he went and Dickie went
with him. When they returned to their home in the evening, the fire
had been lighted again in the nursery and the others were just having tea.
We toasted our bread and butter on the bare side, and it gets a
little warm among the butter. This is called a French toast. I like
English better, but it is more expensive, Alice said, Matilda is in
a frightful rage about your putting those coals on a kitchen fire, Oswald.
She says, we sha'n't have enough to last day a Christmas as it is.
And Father gave her a talking to before he went about them. Asked
her if she ate them, she says, but I don't believe he did.
Anyway, she's locked the coal cellar door, and she's got the key
in her pocket. I don't see how we can boil the pudding. What
pudding? Said Oswald dreamily. He was thinking of a chap he had seen
at Penn's who had cut the date eighteen ninety nine on the ice with four
strokes the pudding. Alice said, Oh, we've had such a time,
Oswald. First, Dora and I went to the shops to find out exactly
what the pudding were cost. It's only two and elevenpence, Hatney counting in
the holly. It's no good, Oswald repeated. He is very patient and
will say the same thing any number of times. It's no good. You
know, we've got no tin, ah said Alice. But Tatcho and I
went out and we called at some of the houses in Granville Park and Dartmouth
Hill, and we got a lot of sixpences and shillings besides pennies, and
one old gentleman gave us half a crown. He was so nice, quite
bald, with a knitted red and blue waistcoat. We've got eight and sevenpence.
Oswald did not feel quite sure Father would like us to go asking for
shillings and sixpences or even half crowns from strangers, But he did not say
so. The money had been asked for and got and it couldn't be helped,
and perhaps he wanted the pudding. I am not able to remember exactly
why he did not speak up and say this is wrong, but anyway he
didn't. Alice and Dora went out and bought the things. Next morning they
bought double quantities, so that it came to five shillings and elevenpence and was
enough to make a noble pudding. There was a lot of holly left over
for decorations. We used very little for the sauce. The money that was
left we spent very anxiously in other things to eat, such as dates and
figs and toffee. We did not tell Matilda about it. She was a
red haired girl and apt to turn shirty at the least thing concealed under our
jackets and overcoats. We carried the parcels up to the nursery and hid them
in the treasure chest we had there. It was the bureau drawer. It
was locked up afterwards because the treacle got all over the green bays and the
little drawers inside it. While we were waiting to begin to make the pudding,
it was the grocer told us we ought to put treacle in the pudding,
and also about not so much ginger as a tea cupful. When Matilda
had begun to pretend to scrub the floor, she pretended this three times a
week, so as to have an excuse not to let us in the kitchen,
but I know she used to read novelettes most of the time, because
Alice and I had a squint through the window more than once. We barricaded
the nursery door and set to work. We were very careful to be quite
clean. We washed our hands as well as the currants. I have sometimes
thought we did not get all the soap off the currants. The pudding smelt
like a washing day when the time came to cut it open, and we
washed a corner of the table to chop the suet on. Chopping seuet looks
easy to do. Try father's machine he weighs letters with did to weigh out
the things. We did this very carefully in case the grocer had not done
so. Everything was white except the raisins. Ho had carried them home.
He was very young then, and there was a hole in the corner of
the paper bag, and his mouth was sticky. Lots of people have been
hanged to a gibbet in chains on evidence no worse than that, and we
told Ho so till he cried. This was good for him. It was
not unkindness to hoe, but part of our duty. Chopping suet as fine
as possible is much harder than any one would think. As I said before,
so is crumbling bread, especially if your loaf is new like ours was.
When we had done them, the bread crumbs and suet were both very
large and lumpy, and of a dingy gray color, something like pale slate
pencil. They looked a better color when we had mixed them with a flour.
The girls had washed the currants with brown windsor soap and the sponge.
Some of the currants got inside the sponge and kept coming out in a bath
for days afterwards. I see now that this was not quite nice. We
cut the candied peel as thin as we wish people would cut our bread and
butter. We tried to take the stones out of the raisins, but they
were too sticky, so we just divided them up in seven lots. Then
we mixed the other things in the wash hand basin from the spare bedroom that
was always spare. We each put in our own lot of raisins and turned
it all into a pudding basin and tied it up in one of Alice's pinafores,
which was the nearest thing to a proper pudding cloth we could find at
any rate clean. What was left sticking to the wash hand basin did not
taste so bad. It's a little bit soapy, Alice said, But perhaps
that will boil out like stains in tablecloths. It was a difficult question how
to boil the pudding. Matilda proved furious when asked to let us just because
someone had happened to knock her hat off the scullery door, and Pincher had
got it and done for it. However, part of the embassy nick to
saucepan while the others were being told what Matilda thought about the hat, And
we got hot water out of the bathroom and made it boil over our nursery
fire. We put the pudding in it. It was now getting on towards
the hour of tea, and let it boil, with some exceptions owing to
the fire going down and Matilda not hurrying up with coals. It boiled for
an hour and a quarter. Then Matilda came suddenly in and said, I'm
not going to have you messing about in here with my saucepans, and she
tried to take it off the fire. You will see that we couldn't stand
this. It was not likely I do not remember who it was that told
her to mind her own business, And I think I have forgotten who caught
hold of her first to make her chuck it. I'm sure no needless violence
was used. Anyway, While the struggle progressed, Alice and Dora took the
saucepan away and put it in the boot cupboard under the stairs, and put
the key in their pocket. This sharp encounter made every one very hot and
cross. We got over it before Matilda did, but we brought her round
before bedtime. Should always be made up before bedtime, it says so in
the Bible. If this simple rule was followed, there would not be so
many wars and martyrs, and lawsuits and inquisitions and bloody deaths. At the
stake. All the house was still. The gas was out all over the
house, except on the first landing, when several darkly shrouded figures might have
been observed creeping downstairs to the kitchen. On the way with superior precaution,
we got out our saucepan. The kitchen fire was red but low. The
coal cellar was locked, and there was nothing in the scuttle but a little
coal dust and the piece of brown paper that had put in to keep the
coals from tumbling out through the bottom where the hole is. We put the
saucepan on the fire and plied it with fuel. Two chronicles, a telegraph,
and two family herald novelettes were burned in vain. I am almost sure
the pudding did not boil at all that night. Never mind, Alice said,
we can each nick a piece of coal every time we go into the
kitchen tomorrow. This daring scheme was faithfully performed, and by night we had
nearly half a waste paper basket of coal, coke and cinders. And in
the depth of night once more we might have been observed, this time with
our collier like waste paper basket in our guarded hands. There was more fire
left in the grate that night, and we fed it with a fuel we
had collected. This time, the fire blazed up and the pudding boiled like
mad. This was the time it boiled two hours at least, I think
it was about that. But we dropped asleep on the kitchen tables and dresser.
You dare not be lowly in the night in a kitchen because of the
beetles. We were aroused by horrible smell it was the pudding cloth burning all
the water had secretly boiled itself away. We filled it up at once with
cold and the saucepan cracked, So we cleaned it and put it back on
the shelf, and took another and went to bed. You see what a
lot of trouble we had over the push every evening till Christmas, which had
now become only the day after tomorrow. We sneaked down in the inky midnight
and boiled that pudding for as long as it would. On Christmas morning,
we chopped the holly for the sauce, but we put hot water instead of
brandy and moist sugar. Some of them said it was not so bad.
Oswald was not one of these. Then came the moment, when the plain
pudding father had ordered smoked upon the board. Matilda brought it in and went
away at once. She had a cousin out of Woolwich Arsenal to see her
that day. I remember those far off days are quite distinctive memory's recollection.
Still, then we got out our own pudding from its hiding place and gave
it one last hurried boil, only seven minutes because of the general impatience which
Oswald and Dora could not cope with. We had found means to secrete a
dish, and we now tried to dish the pudding up, but it stuck
to the basin and had to be dis lodged with a chisel. The pudding
was horribly pale. We poured the holly sauce over it, and Dora took
up the knife and was just cutting it when a few simple words from Aho
turned us from happy and triumphing cookery artists the persons in despair. He said,
how pleased all those kind ladies and gentlemen would be if they knew we
were the poor children they gave the shillings and sixpences and things for. We
all said what it was no moment for politeness, I say, Aho said,
they'd be glad if they knew it was us was enjoying the pudding and
not dirty little, really poor children. You should say you were not you,
was said Dora. But it was as in a dream, and only
from habit do you mean to say? Oswald spoke firmly, yet not angrily,
that you and Alice went and begged for money for poor children and then
kept it. We didn't keep it, said Acho, we spent it.
We've kept the things, you little duffer, said Dickie, looking at the
pudding sitting alone and uncared for on its dish. You begged for money for
poor children and then kept it. It's stealing, that's what it is.
I don't say so much about you. You're only a silly kid. But
Alice knew better. Why did you do it? He turned to Alice,
but she was now too deep in tears to get a word out. Aho
looked a bit frightened, but he answered the question. We have taught him
this, he said. I thought they'd give us more if I said poor
children than if I said just us. That's cheating, said Dickie. Downright,
beastly mean, low cheating. I'm not, said Achho, and you're
another. Then he began to cry too. I do not know how the
others felt, but I understand from Oswald that he felt that now the honor
of the House of Basket had been stamped on in the dust, and it
didn't matter what happened. He looked at the beastly holly that had been left
over from the sauce and was stuck up over the pictures. It now appeared
hollow and disgusting, though it had got quite a lot of berries, and
some of it was the varied kind, green and white. The figs and
dates and toffee were set out in a doll's dinner service. The very side
of it all made Oswald blush sickly. He owns he would have liked to
cuff h O. And if he did, for a moment wish to shake
Alice the author, for one can make allowances. Now. Alice choked and
spluttered and wiped her eyes fiercely, and said, it's no use ragging,
h O. It's my fault. I'm older than he is. Ho said
it couldn't be Alice's fault. I don't see as it was wrong that,
not, as murmured Dora, putting her arm round the sinner who had brought
this degrading blight upon our family tree. But such sheers girls, a determined,
an affectionate silliness, tell sist all about it. Ho, dear,
why couldn't it be Alice's fault? Aho cuddled up to Dora and said,
snufflingly in his nose, because she hadn't got nothing to do with it.
I collected it all. She never went into one of the houses. She
didn't want to, and then took all the credit of getting the money,
said Dickie savagely. Oswald said, not much credit in scornful tones. Oh
you are beastly, the whole lot of you, except Dora, Alice said,
stamping her foot in rage and despair. I tore my frock on a
nail going out, and I didn't want to go back, and I got
ho to go to the houses alone, and I waited for him outside,
and I asked him not to say anything, because I didn't want Dora to
know about the frock. It's my best and I don't know what he said
inside. He never told me, but I'll bet anything he didn't mean to
cheat. You said, lots of fine people will be ready to give money
to get pudding for poor children, so I asked them to. Oswald,
with his strong right hand, waved a wave of passing things over. We'll
talk about that another time, he said. Just now, we've got weightier
things to deal with. He pointed to the pudding, which had grown cold
during the conversation to which I have alluded. Aho stopped crying, but Alice
went on with it. Oswald now said, we're a base and outcast family.
Until that pudding's out of the house, we shan't be able to look
anyone in the face. We must see that that pudding goes to poor children,
not grizzling, grumpy, whiney, piney pretending poor children, but real
poor ones, just as poor as they can stick. And the figs too,
and the dates, said Noel, with regretting tones. Every fig said
Dickie sternly. Oswald is quite right. This honorable made us feel a bit
better. We hastily put on our best things, and washed ourselves a bit,
and hurried out to find some really poor people to give the pudding to.
We cut it in slices ready and put it in a basket with the
figs and dates and toffee. We would not let h O come with us
at first, because he wanted to, and Alice would not come because of
him. So at last we had to let him. The excitement of tearing
into your best things heals the hurt that wounded on a feels, as the
poetry writer said, or at any rate, it makes the hurt feel better.
We went out into the streets. They were pretty quiet. Nearly everybody
was eating its Christmas dessert. But presently we met a woman in an apron.
Oswald said, very politely, please, are you a poor person?
And she told us to get along with us. The next we met was
a shabby man with a hole in his left boot. Again, Oswald said,
please, are you a poor person? And have you any poor little
children? The man told us not to come any of our games with him,
or we should laugh on the wrong side of our faces. We went
on sadly. We had no heart to stop and explain to him that we
had no games to come. The next was a young man near the obelisk.
Dora tried this time. She said, oh, if you please,
we've got some Christmas pudding in this basket, and if you're a poor person
you can have some poor as job, said the young man in a hoarse
voice, and he had to come up out of a red comforter to say
it. We gave him a slice of the pudding and he bit into it
without thanks or delay. The next minute he had thrown the pudding slap in
Dora's face and was clutching Dicky by the collar. BlimE me, if I
don't chuck you in the river. The whole blooming lot of you, he
exclaimed. The girl screamed, the boys shouted, and though Oswald threw himself
on the insulter of his sister with all his manly vigor. Yet but for
a friend of Oswald who was in the police passing at that instant, the
author shudders to think what might have happened. For he was a strong young
man, and Oswald is not yet come to his full strength. And the
quaggy runs all too near. Our policemen led our assailant aside, and we
waited anxiously as he told us to. After long uncertain moments, the young
man in the comforter loafed off, grumbling, and our policeman turned to us,
said, you give him a dollar pudding and a toasted of soap and
hair oil. I suppose the hair oil must have been the brown winseriness of
the soap coming out. We were sorry, but it was still our duty
to get rid of the pudding. The quaggy was handy, it is true,
but when you have collected money to feed poor children and spent it on
pudding, it is not right to throw that pudding in the river. People
did not subscribe shillings and sixpences and half crowns to feed a hungry flood with
Christmas pudding. Yet we shrank from asking any more people whether they were poor
persons or about their famis, and still more from offering the pudding to chance
people who might bite into it and taste the soap. Before we had time
to get away, it was Alice, the most paralyzed with disgrace of all
of us, who thought of the best idea. She said, let's take
it to the workhouse. At any rate, they're all poor there, and
they mayn't go out without leave, so they can't run after us to do
anything to us after the pudding. No one would give them leave to go
out to pursue people who had brought them pudding and wreck vengeance on them.
And at any rate we shall get rid of the conscience pudding. It's a
sort of conscience money, you know. Only it isn't money, but pudding.
The workhouse is a good way. But we stuck to it, though
very cold and hungrier than we thought possible when we started, for we had
been so agitated we had not even stayed to eat the plane pudding. Our
good father had so kindly and thoughtfully ordered for our Christmas dinner. The big
bell at the workhouse made a man open the door to us when we rang
it, Oswald said, And he spoke because he is next eldest to Dora,
and she had had jolly well enough of saying anything about pudding. He
said, please, we've brought some pudding for the poor people. He looked
us up and down, and he looked at our basket. Then he said,
you'd better see the matron. We waited in a hall, feeling more
and more uncomfy, and less and less like Christmas. We were very cold,
indeed, especially our hands and our noses, and we felt less and
less able to face the matron if she was horrid, and one of us
at least wished we had chosen the quaggy for the pudding's long home, and
made it up to the robbed paw in some other way. Afterwards, just
as Alice was saying earnestly in the burning cold ear of Oswald, let's put
down the basket and make a bolt for it, Oh, Oswald, let's
a lady came along the passage. She was very upright, and she had
eyes that went through you like blue gimlets. I should not like to be
obliged to thwart that lady if she had any design, and mine was opposite.
I'm glad this is not likely to occur. She said, what's all
this about a pudding? Acho said at once, before we could stop him,
they say, I've stolen the pudding, so we've brought her here for
the poor people. No we didn't. That wasn't why the money was given.
It was meant for the poor. Shut our, Pacho said, the
rest of us all at once. Then there was an awful silence. The
lady gimleted us again, one by one with her blue eyes. Then she
said, come into my room. You all look frozen. She took us
into a very jolly room with velvet curtains and a big fire, and the
gas lighted because now it was almost dark even out of doors. She gave
us chairs, and Oswald felt as if his was a dock. He felt
so criminal, and the lady looked so judgular. Then she took the arm
chair by the fire herself and said, who's the eldest I am, said
Dora, looking more like frightened white rabbit than I've ever seen her. Then
tell me all about it. Dora looked at Alice and began to cry.
That slab of pudding in the face had totally unnerved the gentle girl. Alice's
eyes were red and her face was puffy with crying, but she spoke up
for Dora and said, oh, please, let Oswald tell Dora. Can't
she's tired with the long walk? And a young man threw a piece of
it in her face, and the lady nodded, and Oswald began. He
told the story from the very beginning, as he has always been taught to,
though he hated to lay bare the family honour's wound before a stranger.
However, judge like and gimlet eyed, he told all, not concealing the
pudding throwing nor what the young man had said about soap. So he ended,
we want to give the conscience pudding to you. It's like conscience money.
You know what that is, don't you. But if you really think
it is soapy and not just the young man's horridness, perhaps you'd better not
let them meet it. But the pigs and things we all right. When
he had done, the lady said, for most of us were crying more
or less, come cheer up. It's Christmas time and he's very little your
brother, I mean, and I think the rest of you seem pretty well
able to take care of the honor of the family. I'll take the conscience
pudding off your minds. Where are you going now home, I suppose,
Oswald said, And he thought, how nasty and dark and dull it would
be. The fire out most lightly and farther away. And your father's not
at home, you say, The blue Gimlet lady went on, what do
you say to having tea with me? And then seeing the entertainment we have
got up for our old people. Then the lady smiled, and the blue
Gimlets looked quite merry. The room was so warm and comfortable, and the
invitation was the last thing we expected. It was jolly of her. I
do think no one thought quite at first of saying how pleased we should be
took accept her kind invitation. Instead we all just said, oh, but
in a tone which must have told her we meant yes, please very deeply.
Oswald, this has more than once happened, was the first to restore
his manners. He made a proper bow, like he has been toured,
and said, thank you very much. We should like it very much.
It is very much nicer than going home. Thank you very much. I
need not tell the reader that Oswald could have made up a much better speech
if he had had more time to make it up in or if he had
not been so filled with mixed flusteredness and purification by the shameful events of the
day. We washed our faces and hands and had a first rate muffin and
crumpet tea, with slices of cold meats and many nice jams and cakes.
A lot of other people were there, most of them people who were giving
the entertainment to the aged poor. After tea, it was the entertainment songs
and conjuring and a play called Box and very amusing, and a lot of
throwing things about in it, bacon and chops and things, and nigger minstrels.
We clapped till our hands were sore. When it was over, we
said goodbye. In between the songs and things, Oswald had had time to
make up a speech of thanks to the lady. He said, we all
thank you heartily for your goodness. The entertainment was beautiful. We shall never
forget your kindness and hospitableness. The lady laughed and said she had been very
pleased to have us, A fat gentleman said, and your teas, I
hope you enjoyed those. Eh Oswald had not had time to make up an
answer to that, so he answered straight from the heart and said rather,
And every one laughed and slapped us boys on the back and kissed the girls.
And the gentleman who played the bones in the Nigger Minstrel saw us home.
We ate the cold pudding that night, and Ho dreamed that something came
to eat him, like it advises you to in the advertisements on the hoardings.
The grown up said it was the pudding, But I don't think it
could have been that, because, as I have said more than once,
it was so very plain. Some of Ho's brothers and sisters thought it was
a judgment on him for pretending about who the poor children were he was collecting
the money for. Oswald's not believe such a little boy as h O would
have a real judgment made just for him and nobody else whatever he did.
But it certainly is odd. Ho was the only one who had bad dreams,
and he was also the only one who got any of the things we
bought with that ill gotten money, because you remember he picked a hole in
a raisin paper as he was bringing the parcel home. The rest of us
had nothing unless you count the scrapings of the pudding basin, and those don't
really count at all. End of the conscience. Pudding by EN's Pitt