And the poor creature must learn so many trades. It is not enough that I strain my brains to bursting-point in order to think out new forms of nourishment for James, but I must learn the anatomy and the personal habits of the creatures he devours, conduct post-mortem examinations to discover whether they died too soon or not soon enough, whether they had eaten too much or not eaten enough, taken too much exercise or led too sedentary a life. I must be perpetually on the look-out to circumvent the countless ruses which Satan suggests to half a dozen intelligent tradesmen. I must know exactly in what combination the things I have bought will best amalgamate in James’s inside, and I must then somehow convey my knowledge through the tough skull of my cook. When at last I have got both food and ideas safely lodged in her keeping I must find the dish on which she is to serve it, and, worst of all, besiege her incessantly with alarm clocks and gongs to ensure its appearance at the right time. When the meal is sent up only half of my work is done. I have to keep an eye on the tools with which James is to eat it, otherwise they are liable to be blunt, sticky, or placed crookedly on the table. After this James eats his dinner in peace, whilst I make a mental note of Clara’s personal habits, her flowers to praise, or her weeds to blame, and either or both to loathe; her elaborate elegancies of manner, or the fact that she always forgets to hand the sauce before she goes back to stand on one leg by the sideboard and listen to our conversation. I have stopped that now and told her not to wait, which means that she goes off to the bedrooms between the courses and does not hear the bell. I can hear the efficient female say scornfully that I should get servants who know their business; but she forgets that if she or I do not have to train our striped geese in the sweat of our brows it means that some other mother of a family has done it--or perished in the attempt--and that Sarah Ann has left to “better herself.” Also one of the most efficient characteristics of the efficient female is her powerful fascination for servants of the clockwork-mouse type whom I abhor. Their machinery has been made by people with different tastes from my own, and when I have found the key and wound them up they begin folding table-napkins into wine-glasses with horrid dexterity, or they play a sort of suburban Halma called “ladies first” when they hand the courses.