tive were WAVE and FLOOD. WAVE shot out a thin jet
of boiling water which caught me in the chest, and FLOOD filled the bath
with cold water long before it could be identified and turned off.

No, taps are not of the first importance, though, properly polished, they
look well. But no bath is complete without one of those attractive bridges
or trays where one puts the sponges and the soap. Conveniences like that
are a direct stimulus to washing. The first time I met one I washed myself
all over two or three times simply to make the most of knowing where the
soap was. Now and then, in fact, in a sort of bravado I deliberately lost
it, so as to be able to catch it again and put it back in full view on the
tray. You can also rest your feet on the tray when you are washing them,
and so avoid cramp.

Again, I like a bathroom where there is an electric bell just above the
bath, which you can ring with the big toe. This is for use when one has
gone to sleep in the bath and the water has frozen, or when one has begun
to commit suicide and thought better of it. Apart from these two occasions
it can be used for Morsing instructions about breakfast to the
cook--supposing you have a cook. And if you haven't a cook a little
bell-ringing in the basement does no harm.

But the most extraordinary thing about the modern bath is that there is no
provision for shaving in it. Shaving in the bath I regard as the last word
in systematic luxury. But in the ordinary bath it is very difficult. There
is nowhere to put anything. There ought to be a kind of shaving tray
attached to every bath, which you could swing in on a flexible arm,
complete with mirror and soap and strop, new blades and shaving-papers and
all the other confounded paraphernalia. Then, I think, shaving would be
almost tolerable, and there wouldn't be so many of these horrible beards
about.

The same applies to smoking. It is incredible that to-day in the twentieth
century there should be no recognised way of disposing of a cigarette-end
in the bath. Personally I only smoke pipes in the bath, but it is
impossible to find a place in which to deposit even a pipe so that it will
not roll off into the water. But I have a brother-in-law who smokes cigars
in the bath, a disgusting habit. I have often wondered where he hid the
ends, and I find now that he has made a _cache_ of them in the gas-ring of
the geyser. One day the ash will get into the burners and then the geyser
will explod