“That’s the style,” said Berry.  “Let me know when it’s going to appear, and I’ll get a bedroom at the Club.  When you’ve weeded the best out of the first hundred thousand, I’ll come back and give the casting vote.”

From behind, my sister put her arms about my neck and laid her soft cheek against mine.

“My dear,” she murmured, “I daren’t.  Half the cooks in England would leave their situations.”

“So much the better,” said I.  “All’s fair in love and war.  I don’t know which this is, but we’ll call it ‘love’ and chance it.  Besides,” I added cunningly, “we must knock out Katharine.”

The light of battle leapt into my sister’s eyes.  Looking at it from her point of view, I realized that my judgment had been ill-considered.  Plainly it was not a question of love, but of war—­“and that most deadly.”  She drew her arms from my neck and stood upright.

“Couldn’t you leave out my name and just put ’Box So-and-so’?”

I shook my head.

“That’s so intangible.  Besides, I think the telephone number’s a great wheeze.”  Thoughtfully she crossed to the fireplace and lighted a cigarette.  “I’ll send it to-morrow,” I said.

Suddenly the room was full of silvery laughter.

From Berry’s side at the writing-table Jill looked up sparkling.

“Listen to this,” she said, holding up the letter which my brother-in-law had just completed.

DEAR BROTHER,

Incompetent bungler though you are, and bitter as has been my experience of your gaucherie in the past, I am once again about to prove whether out of the dunghill of inefficiency which, with unconscious humour, you style your ‘mind’ there can be coaxed a shred of reliability and understanding.

It is within your knowledge that some three weeks ago this household was suddenly deprived of the services of its cook.  This out of a clear sky and, if we may believe the police, in one of those uncharted purlieus which shroud in mystery the source of the Cromwell Road.  After four lean days your gluttonous instincts led you precipitately to withdraw to Paris, from whence, knowing your unshakable belief in the vilest forms of profligacy, I appreciate that lack of means must ere long enforce your return.

Therefore I write.

For twenty-two unforgettable sultry days we have endured the ghastly pleasantries of charwomen, better qualified to victual the lower animals than mankind.  To call the first meal “breakfast” is sheer blasphemy:  lunch is a hollow mockery:  dinner, the abomination of desolation.  I do what I can with grape-nuts and the gas-stove in the bathroom, but the result is unhappy, and last night the milk was too quick for me.

I therefore implore you to collect a cook in Paris without delay.  Bring it with you when you come, or, better still, send it in advance, carriage paid.  Luxury shall be heaped upon it.  Its slightest whim shall be gratified, and it shall go to “the movies” at my expense, whenever I am sent tickets.  Can generosity go further?  Wages no object:  fare paid back to Paris as soon as Mrs. Mason’s leg can carry her.