At last the broth began to bubble and boil , and she drew off the saucepan and poured its contents into a silver bowl , which she set before Jem . ` There , my boy , ' said she , ` eat this soup and then you 'll have everything which pleased you so much about me . And you shall be a clever cook too , but the real herb -- no , the REAL herb you 'll never find . Why had your mother not got it in her basket ? ' The child could not think what she was talking about , but he quite understood the soup , which tasted most delicious . His mother had often given him nice things , but nothing had ever seemed so good as this . The smell of the herbs and spices rose from the bowl , and the soup tasted both sweet and sharp at the same time , and was very strong . As he was finishing it the guinea pigs lit some Arabian incense , which gradually filled the room with clouds of blue vapour . They grew thicker and thicker and the scent nearly overpowered the boy . He reminded himself that he must get back to his mother , but whenever he tried to rouse himself to go he sank back again drowsily , and at last he fell sound asleep in the corner of the sofa . Strange dreams came to him . He thought the old woman took off all his clothes and wrapped him up in a squirrel skin , and that he went about with the other squirrels and guinea pigs , who were all very pleasant and well mannered , and waited on the old woman . First he learned to clean her cocoa-nut shoes with oil and to rub them up . Then he learnt to catch the little sun moths and rub them through the finest sieves , and the flour from them he made into soft bread for the toothless old woman . In this way he passed from one kind of service to another , spending a year in each , till in the fourth year he was promoted to the kitchen . Here he worked his way up from under-scullion to head-pastrycook , and reached the greatest perfection . He could make all the most difficult dishes , and two hundred different kinds of patties , soup flavoured with every sort of herb -- he had learnt it all , and learnt it well and quickly . When he had lived seven years with the old woman she ordered him one day , as she was going out , to kill and pluck a chicken , stuff it with herbs , and have it very nicely roasted by the time she got back . He did this quite according to rule . He wrung the chicken 's neck , plunged it into boiling water , carefully plucked out all the feathers , and rubbed the skin nice and smooth .
Then he went XXXXX fetch the herbs to stuff it with .
At about as before by in of out that to