d Registry Office that had answered my call.

'Come in,' I said eagerly, and, leading the way into the dining-room, I
seated myself before her. With lowered eyes and modest mien I was, of
course, waiting for her to speak first. I did not wait long. Her
voice, concise and direct, rapped out: 'So you require a cook-general?'

'Yes--er--please,' I murmured. Under her searching gaze my knees
trembled, my pulses throbbed, a slight perspiration broke out on my
forehead. My whole being seemed to centre itself in the mute inquiry:
'Shall I suit?'

There was a pause while the applicant placed her heavy guns. Then she
opened fire immediately. 'I suppose you have outside daily help?'

'Er--no,' I confessed.

'Then you have a boy to do the windows, knives and boots?'

'No.'

'Do you send everything to the laundry?'

'Well . . . no . . . not quite.' I wanted to explain, to modify, to
speak airily of woollens being 'just rubbed through,' but she hurried
me forward.

'Have you a hot water circulator?'

'No.'

'A gas cooking-range?'

'No.'

It was terrible. I seemed to have nothing. I stood, as it were, naked
to the world, bereft of a single inducement to hold out to the girl.

'Do you dine late?'

At this point, when I longed to answer 'No,' I was compelled to say
'Yes.' That decided her. She rose at once and moved towards the door.
'I'm afraid your situation won't do for me,' she remarked.

That was all she said. She was perfectly dignified about it. Much as
she obviously condemned me, there was no noisy recrimination, no
violent vituperative outburst on her part. I followed in her wake to
the door. Even at the eleventh hour I hoped for a respite. 'Couldn't
something be arranged?' I faltered as my gaze wandered hungrily over
her capable-looking form. 'We might get you a gas-cooker--and all
that.'

Do not condemn me. Remember that my will had been weakened by
housework; six months of doing my own washing-up had brought me to my
knees. I was ready to agree to any terms that were offered me. The
applicant shook her head. There were too many obstacles in the way,
too many radical changes necessary before the place could be made
suitable for her. I realized finality in her answer, 'No, nothink,'
and closing the front door behind her, I returned to the study to
brood. I was still there, thinking bitterly, the shadows of the
evening creeping around me, when Henry came in.

'Hallo,' he said gr