w, was foolish enough to
venture back to Russia, and who is now living rent free. The landlord of
the house is an original old fellow, Deleglise the engraver. He occupies
the rest of the house himself. He has told me I can have the rooms for
anything I like to offer, and I should suggest thirty shillings a week,
though under ordinary circumstances they would be worth three or four
pounds. But he will only let us have them on the understanding that
we 'do for' ourselves. He is quite an oddity. He hates petticoats,
especially elderly petticoats. He has one servant, an old Frenchwoman,
who, I believe, was housekeeper to his mother, and he and she do the
housework together, most of their time quarrelling over it. Nothing else
of the genus domestic female will he allow inside the door; not even an
occasional charwoman would be permitted to us. On the other hand, it
is a beautiful old Georgian house, with Adams mantelpieces, a stone
staircase, and oak-panelled rooms; and our portion would be the entire
second floor: no pianos and no landlady. He is a widower with one child,
a girl of about fourteen or maybe a little older. Now, what do you say?
I am a very fair cook; will you be house-and-parlour-maid?"

I needed no pressing. A week later we were installed there, and for
nearly two years we lived there. At the risk of offending an adorable
but somewhat touchy sex, convinced that man, left to himself, is
capable of little more than putting himself to bed, and that only in
a rough-and-ready fashion, truth compels me to record the fact that
without female assistance or supervision of any kind we passed through
those two years, and yet exist to tell the tale. Dan had not idly
boasted. Better plain cooking I never want to taste; so good a cup of
coffee, omelette, or devilled kidney I rarely have tasted. Had he always
confined his efforts within the boundaries of his abilities, there
would be little to record beyond continuous and monotonous success.
But stirred into dangerous ambition at the call of an occasional tea or
supper party, lured out of his depths by the example of old Deleglise,
our landlord--a man who for twenty years had made cooking his hobby--Dan
would at intervals venture upon experiment. Pastry, it became evident,
was a thing he should never have touched: his hand was heavy and
his temperament too serious. There was a thing called lemon sponge,
necessitating much beating of eggs. In the cookery-book--a remarkably