The apartment was sparsely furnished with a largish table covered with rather tired-looking ledgers; two cane chairs stood in front of the table, while behind it was a larger leather-covered chair on which was seated a stout, formidable woman, who glared rather than looked at Mr. Wycherly as he approached. She really was of great bulk, with several chins and what dressmakers would call "a fine bust." Her garments were apparently extremely tight, for her every movement was attended by an ominous creaking. Her hair was frizzed in front right down to her light eyebrows; at the back it was braided in tight plaits. She regarded Mr. Wycherly with small, hostile eyes. He had removed his hat on entrance, and stood before her with dignified white head bowed in deference towards her, courteously murmuring, "Good morning." As she did not make any response, he continued, "I am in need of a competent cook-housekeeper, and thought perhaps——" "How many servants kep’?" she demanded with a fire and suddenness that startled Mr. Wycherly. "I had thought of trying to do with one." "’Ow many in fambly?" and this alarming woman opened one of the books in front of her and seized a pen. There was in her tone such a dreadful suggestion of, "Anything you may say will be used against you," that when she dipped her pen into the ink Mr. Wycherly positively trembled; and grasped the back of one of the cane chairs as a support. "For the larger portion of the year I shall be alone," he said rather sadly, "but during the holidays my two wards——" "Male or female?" "Really," Mr. Wycherly remonstrated, "what has that got to do with it? As a matter of fact my wards are boys." All this time she had been making entries in the ledger; now she looked up to fire off, abruptly as before: "The booking fee is one-and-six." Mr. Wycherly took a handful of silver out of his pocket and abstracted this sum and laid it upon the desk. She of the ledger ignored the offering and continued her cross-examination: "What wages?" Mr. Wycherly mentally invoked a blessing upon Lady Alicia’s practical head as he replied quite glibly, "From twenty to twenty-five pounds, but she must be trustworthy and capable." "What outings?" Here was a poser! But the fighting spirit had been roused in Mr. Wycherly. He would not be browbeaten by this stout, ungracious person who took his eighteenpence, and so far had done nothing but ask questions, affording him no information whatsoever. "That," he retorted with dignity, "can be arranged later on." "Your name and address?" was the next query, and when he furnished this information, carefully spelling his name, it pained him inexpressibly to note that she wrote it down as "Witcherby," at the same time remarking in a rumbling tone indicative of displeasure, "Very old ’ouses, most inconvenient, most trying stairs.... ’Ow soon do you want a general?" "A what?" asked Mr. Wycherly, this time thoroughly mystified.