. "Yes; what is it?"

"I have called, Madam, to ask if you are satisfied with your laundry."

"Far from it," I said. "It is kind of you to ask, but why?"

"Because I wish to solicit your custom for the laundry I represent."

"What faults do you specialise in?" I inquired.

"I beg your pardon, Madam?"

"Will you send home my husband's collars with an edge like a
dissipated saw?"

The young woman's face brightened with comprehension.

"Oh, no, Madam," she replied. "We exercise the greatest care with
gentlemen's stand-up collars."

"Will you shrink my combinations to the size of a doll's?"

An expression of horror invaded her countenance. "The utmost
precaution," she asserted, "is taken to prevent the shrinkage of
woollens."

"Is it your custom to send back towels reduced to two hems connected
by a few stray rags in the middle?"

The young woman was aghast. "All towels are handled as gently as
possible to avoid tearing," she replied.

"How about handkerchiefs?" I asked. "I dislike to find myself grasping
my bare nose through a hole in the centre."

The suggestion made my visitor laugh.

"Are you in the habit of sewing nasty bits of red thread, impossible
to extricate, into conspicuous parts of one's clothing?"

"Oh, no, Madam," she asseverated; "no linen is allowed to leave our
establishment with any disfiguring marks."

"You never, I suppose, return clothing dirtier than when it reached
you?" I proceeded.

Suppressed scorn that I could believe in such a possibility flashed
momentarily from her eyes before she uttered an emphatic denial.

"Nor do you ever perhaps send home garments belonging to other people
while one's own are missing?"

"Never, I can assure you, Madam."

"Does the man who delivers the washing habitually turn the basket
upside down so that the heavy things below crush all the delicate
frilly things that ought to be on top?"

She seemed incapable of conceiving that such perverted creatures could
exist.

"Do they never whistle in an objectionable manner while waiting for
the soiled clothes?"

"Whistling on duty is strictly forbidden, Madam."

"Well, all these things I have mentioned my laundry does to me, and
even more, and when I write to complain they disregard my letters."

"We rarely have complaints, Madam, and all such receive prompt
attention. I can give references in this street--in this block of
flats even."

"Well," said I, "if you like to give me a card I am will