not hesitate to brew for herself some comforting beverage. Besides, I suspect that she avails herself of sundry appetizing tid-bits between meals when something has happened to give her such a turn that you could knock her down with a feather; she then fortifies herself with some of the fruit tart or a bit of the cold roast fowl or the remains of the grouse pie, to say nothing of surreptitious draughts from a black bottle, which she conceals under her apron when necessary.
To be sure, cook's complexion may be somewhat highly colored; there is little doubt that she wears her skirts a trifle short, and sometimes stands with arms akimbo, while I feel quite sure that her waist-measure is at least thirty-six inches. But what of that? No one dares insinuate that cook is fat, or even stout. No; she is spoken of as having a comfortable figure. Even the smart housemaid—the one, I mean, who always has a fresh ribbon in her cap, just as the London slavey is never without a smut on her nose—even the smart housemaid ventures to give but little rein to her natural flippancy in cook's presence. When, amid the warmth, the good cheer and chatter of the servants' hall, cook begins to express her opinion of the match which young master is about to make, or to discuss the state of the family finances, just notice how quickly the smart housemaid stops giggling and flirting with the bashful footman, and how respectfully the servants all listen to cook!
In short, cook suffers from only one drawback in an existence otherwise enviable: her choice in matrimony appears to be limited to the gray-haired butler. Personally, I should be pleased if, for the sake of variety, cook might occasionally, at least, have the chance to accept the haberdasher or the green-grocer. However, she might do much worse than be married to the gray-haired butler. At any rate, he is respectable. How much more pitiable would be the case of cook if, like that poor sweet young thing, Lady Doris, she were forced by a worldly minded mother into marriage with that old-young man, Sir Charles Cavendish, or rich old Lord St. Leger, who lisps, and paints, and is suspected of wearing stays!
Sometimes cook and the gray-haired butler manage to save a tidy sum between them, and then they leave the old Hall, and take over a house from somebody and let lodgings, or more often they set up a little shop. And what a pleasant place is cook's little shop, with the draper's wife or the chemist's lady coming in for a comfortable gossip over the counter, and going away with whity-brown paper parcels! How cozy, too, is cook's stuffy little back parlor, with its green-curtained door opening into the shop, and the black kettle hissing on the hob, and its smell of hot buttered cakes and other good things! However, cook and the gray-haired butler are not long contented here. The butler feels that the family cannot get on without him; the plate and the cellar are on his mind; and as for cook, she is worried for fear that a hole will be burned through the best damask tablecloth by the feckless young laundry-maid. So they go back to the old Hall, and cook once more has the run of the pantries. On the whole, I think I would rather be cook than almost anyone else here.
The English doctor is another person who does not find life difficult in the story-book world. Apparently, he needs to learn only one thing before buying a practice, and that is how to prescribe a composing-draught. No matter what your ailment, whether it be hysterics or typhoid fever or a great sorrow, the medical man will leave you a composing-draught, and the next morning you have almost recovered, although you arc still looking a little pale.
The English detective, also, is not overworked in this queer world. He exists, as I have just intimated, but his services are not actually needed. When one wishes to obtain a clue to any mystery, all that he has to do is to examine somebody's blotting-book. The stately housekeeper—she who is
