trust and friendship formed by years of understanding? Our particular
bulwarks were becoming quite shaky through nothing else but having to
muddle through the dull sordid grind of cooking and housework by
ourselves. We were getting disillusioned with each other. No
'jaundiced eye that casts discolouration' could look more jaundiced
than Henry's when I asked him to dry up the dinner things.

Having explained all this, you will now understand something of my
feelings when, on going to answer a knock at the door, I was confronted
by a solid female who said she had been sent from the Registry Office.
Oh, thrice blessed 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.'