Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 — John Shaqi
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
It seems to me that what is chiefly wrong with houses, at any rate
with our house, is the scullery. It is smaller than most bathrooms,
and, though it is anything but bare, the furnishings of it are not
intriguing to one who, like myself, spends therein such an undue
proportion of the twenty-four hours.
Our present char comes three days a week, about eleven o'clock, has
a look round with a duster in one hand till thirteen o'clock, then
lunches and (probably) has a cigarette. She leaves at fifteen o'clock.
This means that I help with the washing-up of the breakfast, tea and
dinner things on char days, and of luncheon things as well on non-char
days. My share of the task is generally the wiping. This is not
such an engrossing occupation as to prevent one from thinking great
thoughts at the same time, thoughts worthy to be committed to paper
afterwards. Now, as a song-writer, I ask how can one get inspiration
while gazing at a row of saucepans, a cullender, a bottle of metal
paste, one ditto knife polish and a plate-rack?
If any room in the house should be luxuriously furnished it is the
scullery. But what is even more important, I think, is that the whole
game of scullerying should be revolutionised. The implements still in
use are worthy of the Stone Age. The rules should be so framed that
there should be little or no washing-up, in the ordinary acceptation
of the term.
Let me put before you a pen-picture of the scullery of my dreams.
A cosy pleasant room, the whole length of the house in fact, with
a south aspect, full advantage of which is secured by a long window
filled with leaded lights of opalescent glass (in order that the
Hilary-Tompkins next door, who have two servants, may not grow too
ribald). On the western wall is a rich mosaic depicting Hercules
cleansing the Augean stable, and below this a fountain of clear limpid
water, warmed to at least twenty over grease-proof, gushes forth and
flows in a pellucid stream, between banks of marble, to the eastern
end of the chamber. At the fountain head reclines Euphemia, my wife,
arrayed and fructed proper, who leisurely drops the crockery into the
stream. At the other end of the room, seated in a "profound chair" by
the estuary, where the waters of the River Plate fall into the Sink
Basin, behold me lazily watching the cups and platters as they glide
gently down the rippling flood towards me, dexterously fishing
out each fresh arrival and depositing it in a hot-air receptacle
conveniently placed for its accommodation.
Such, I say, is the scullery of my dreams, in which the washing up of
a nine-hole-course dinner would be as pleasant as a round of golf.
No unsightly pots, pans, brooms, tins or other junk pollute the
apartment; they are in the dream ante-chamber, to be hereinafter
described or not, if the Editor sees fit. [ED.--He does not see fit.]
* * * * *
Shakspeare and Mr. Charles Chaplin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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