Moodily I extinguished my cigarette and filled and lighted a pipe in its stead.  Then I remembered my threat.

Berry was writing a letter, so I extracted a sheet of notepaper from the left-hand drawer and, taking a pencil from my pocket, sat down on the sofa and set to work to compose an advertisement calculated to allure the most suspicious and blasee cook that ever was foaled.

Jill sat labouring with her needle upon a dainty tea-cloth, pausing now and again to hold a whispered and one-sided conversation with Nobby, who lay at inelegant ease supine between us.  Perched upon the arm of a deep armchair, my sister was subjecting the space devoted by five daily papers to the announcement of “Situations Required” to a second and more leisurely examination.

Presently she rose with a sigh and crossed to the telephone.

We knew what was coming.

Every night she and Katharine Festival communicated to one another their respective failures of the day.  More often than not, these took the simple form of “negative information.”

She was connected immediately.

“Hullo, that you, Katharine? ...  Yes, Daphne.  Any luck? ...  Not much.  You know, it’s simply hopeless.  What? ...  ’Widow with two boys of seven and nine’?  Thank you.  I’d rather ...  Exactly ...  Well, I don’t know.  I’d give it up, only it’s so awful ...  Awful.”

“If she doesn’t believe it, ask her to dinner,” said Berry.

“Shut up,” said Daphne.  “It’s all right, Katharine.  I was speaking to Berry ...  Oh, he’s fed to the teeth.”

“I cannot congratulate you,” said her husband, “upon your choice of metaphor.”

My sister ignored the interruption.

“Oh, rather ...  His food means a lot to him, you know.”

“This,” said her husband, “is approaching the obscene.  I dine off tepid wash and raw fish, I am tormented by the production of a once luscious fillet deliberately rendered unfit for human consumption, and I am deprived of my now ravening appetite by the nauseating reek from the shock of whose assault I am still trying to rally my olfactory nerves.  All this I endure with that unfailing good——­”

“Will you be quiet?” said his wife.  “How can I—–­”

“No, I won’t,” said Berry.  “My finer feelings are outraged.  And that upon an empty stomach.  I shall write home and ask to be taken away.  I shall——­”

“Katharine,” said Daphne, “I can’t hear you because that fool Berry is talking, but Boy’s getting out an advertisement, and we’re going to ...  Oh, are you?  I thought you said you’d given it up ...  Another nineteen shillings’ worth?  Well, here’s luck, anyway ...  Yes, of course.  But I daren’t hope ...  Good-bye.”  She replaced the receiver and turned to me.  “Katharine’s going to start advertising again.”

“Is she?” I grunted.  “Well, I’ll bet she doesn’t beat this.  Listen.

COOK, capable, experienced, is offered for three months abnormal wages, every luxury and a leisurely existence:  electric cooker:  constant hot water:  kitchen-maid:  separate bedroom:  servants’ hall:  late breakfast:  town and country:  followers welcomed.—­Mrs. Pleydell, 7, Cholmondeley Street, Mayfair:  ’Phone, Mayfair 9999."