WANTED, GENERAL SERVANT, in small family of eleven.  Wages, 6 pounds; no beer money.  Must be early riser and hard worker.  Washing done at home.  Must be good cook, and not object to window-cleaning.  Unitarian preferred.—­Apply, with references, to A. B., etc.

That advertisement was sent off on Wednesday afternoon.  At seven o’clock on Thursday morning the whole family were awakened by continuous ringing of the street-door bell.  The husband, looking out of window, was surprised to see a crowd of about fifty girls surrounding the house.  He slipped on his dressing-gown and went down to see what was the matter.  The moment he opened the door, fifteen of them charged tumultuously into the passage, sweeping him completely off his legs.  Once inside, these fifteen faced round, fought the other thirty-five or so back on to the doorstep, and slammed the door in their faces.  Then they picked up the master of the house, and asked him politely to conduct them to “A.  B.”

At first, owing to the clamour of the mob outside, who were hammering at the door and shouting curses through the keyhole, he could understand nothing, but at length they succeeded in explaining to him that they were domestic servants come ill answer to his wife’s advertisement.  The man went and told his wife, and his wife said she would see them, one at a time.

Which one should have audience first was a delicate question to decide.  The man, on being appealed to, said he would prefer to leave it to them.  They accordingly discussed the matter among themselves.  At the end of a quarter of an hour, the victor, having borrowed some hair-pins and a looking-glass from our char-woman, who had slept in the house, went upstairs, while the remaining fourteen sat down in the hall, and fanned themselves with their bonnets.

“A.  B.” was a good deal astonished when the first applicant presented herself.  She was a tall, genteel-looking girl.  Up to yesterday she had been head housemaid at Lady Stanton’s, and before that she had been under-cook for two years to the Duchess of York.

“And why did you leave Lady Stanton?” asked “A.  B.”

“To come here, mum,” replied the girl.  The lady was puzzled.

“And you’ll be satisfied with six pounds a year?” she asked.

“Certainly, mum, I think it ample.”

“And you don’t mind hard work?”

“I love it, mum.”

“And you’re an early riser?”

“Oh yes, mum, it upsets me stopping in bed after half-past five.”

“You know we do the washing at home?”

“Yes, mum.  I think it so much better to do it at home.  Those laundries ruin good clothes.  They’re so careless.”

“Are you a Unitarian?” continued the lady.

“Not yet, mum,” replied the girl, “but I should like to be one.”

The lady took her reference, and said she would write.

The next applicant offered to come for three pounds—­thought six pounds too much.  She expressed her willingness to sleep in the back kitchen:  a shakedown under the sink was all she wanted.  She likewise had yearnings towards Unitarianism.