discharged, the office, on being taken to task for bringing such a woman, wriggles out of its responsibility by an eloquent flow of virtuous indignation and profuse apologies to the family, and if called upon to indemnify any loss or damage, asks for time to make necessary inquiries and prolongs the delay until the matter is forgotten or at least given up as hopeless. [Illustration: COOKING RICE.] Though the number of servants naturally varies with the size, wealth, and social standing of their employer’s household, there are usually three in a well-to-do middle-class family. Of these the most important is the cook. In wealthy families there are _cuisiniers_ for the preparation of the dishes, in which case the cook proper confines herself to boiling rice and keeping the kitchen tidy; indeed, the boiling of rice is in any case the cook’s principal function, as is implied by her Japanese designation, which means “rice-boiler”; but in middle-class families she undertakes general cookery as well. If, moreover, she is the only servant in the house, she sweeps the rooms, scrubs the verandahs, lays and puts away the beds, sets the meal-trays, washes the clothes, and does many other things which are of daily necessity in a Japanese household. Her mistress, however, naturally helps the maid-of-all-work. But if there is an upper servant, the cook boils rice and prepares meals, scrubs the wooden flooring of the kitchen, washes the meal-trays, bowls, and crockery, and helps in washing clothes. The tea-pots and tea-cups, being in constant requisition, have to be often washed in the course of the day. The cook gets up early as the rice has to be boiled for breakfast, and if late hours are kept in the family, she is sent to bed before the others; but as soon as the day’s work is over, she is generally found nodding over the brazier or snoring aloud stretched out on the mats. As the cook’s duties are of the simplest kind, girls fresh from the country become “rice-boilers” and are noted for their dull wits and rough manners.