"

"Lord love yer, mister, I _can_ dispense with 'em easy enough. That's
not the question. The question is, 'ow am I to feed 'em, now I've got
'em? An' 'ow am I to avoid 'em, me bein' a man, mind, an' not a lump
o' dry wood?"

Like all theorists, I am hard put for an answer. I look round me, and
watch my interlocutor preparing to make bread. There is a mammoth pan
on the bench beside me containing a coast-line of flour with a lake of
water in the middle. Cook is opening the yeast-jar, an expression of
serious intent on his face. Some cooks sing when they make bread; the
Scotchman I told you of in a previous letter invariably trilled "Stop
yer ticklin', Jock," and his bread was invariably below par. But this
cook does not warble. He only releases the stopper with a crack like
a gun-shot, flings the liquid "doughshifter" over the lake in a
devastating shower, and commences to knead, swearing softly. Anon the
exorcism changes to a noise like that affected by ostlers as they tend
their charges, and the lake has become a parchment-coloured morass.
For five pounds a month this man toils from four a.m. to eight p.m.,
and his wife can find nothing better to do than present him with
twins!

I look into the glowing fire and think.

I feel this is delicate ground, even allowing for the natural warmth
of a man who has twins, so I am silent.

"Sometimes," Cook continues, growing pensive as the dough grows stiff,
"sometimes I feel as though I could jump over the side with a ''ere
goes nothink' and a bit of fire-bar in me 'ip-pocket. Same blasted
work, day after day. Monday curry an' rice, fresh meat an' two veg.,
''arriet lane' and spuds. Toosday, salt meat ditto. Wednesday, bully
soup an' pastry. Thursday, similar. Friday, kill a pig an' clean the
galley. Sat'day, ''arriet lane' an' spuds, fresh meat, two veg., an'
tart. Sunday, similar with eggs an' bacon aft. What good do it do?
Who's the better for it all? Not me. ''Ere goes nothink!'"

He stabs the fire savagely through a rivet-hole in the door, and
pushes his cauldrons about. To one who knows Cook all this is merely
the safety-valve lifting. The ceaseless grind tells on the hardest
soul, and you behold the result. In an hour or so he will be smiling
again, and telling me how nearly he married a laundryman's daughter in
Tooley Street, a favourite topic which he tries to invest with pathos.
It appears that, after bidding the fair _blanchisseuse_ good-night, he
chanced one