Joseph, probably unfamiliar with the Pilgrim's Progress, replied
that his name was Smith.

The interminable labyrinth of passages threaded, the warm,
comfortable housekeeper's room, with its red curtains, oak presses
and a delicious smell of spice pervading it, was a real haven of
rest. To this very day, nearly sixty years afterwards, it still
looks just the same, and keeps its old fragrant spicy odour.
Common politeness dictated a brief period of conversation, until
Mrs. Pithers, the housekeeper, should take up her wicker key-
basket and select a key (the second press on the left). From that
inexhaustible treasure-house dates and figs would appear, also
dried apricots and those little discs of crystallised apple-paste
which, impaled upon straws, and coloured green, red and yellow,
were in those days manufactured for the special delectation of
greedy little boys. What a happy woman Mrs. Pithers must have been
with such a prodigal wealth of delicious products always at her
command! It was comforting, too, to converse with Mrs. Pithers,
for though this intrepid woman was alarmed neither by bears,
hunchbacks nor crocodiles, she was terribly frightened by what she
termed "cows," and regulated her daily walks so as to avoid any
portion of the park where cattle were grazing. Here the little boy
experienced a delightful sense of masculine superiority. He was
not the least afraid of cattle, or of other things in daylight and
the open air; of course at night in dark passages infested with
bears and little hunchbacks ... Well, it was obviously different.
And yet that woman who was afraid of "cows" could walk without a
tremor, or a little shiver down the spine, past the very "Gates of
Hell," where they roared and blazed in the dark passage.