“When you invite the neighbouring servants to junket with you at home in an evening, teach them a peculiar way of tapping or scraping at the kitchen-window, which you may hear, but not your master or lady, whom you must take care not to disturb or frighten at such unseasonable hours. “Lay all faults upon a lap-dog, or favourite cat, a monkey, parrot, a child; or on the servant who was last turned off: by this rule you will excuse yourself, do no hurt to any body else, and save your master or lady from the trouble and vexation of chiding. “When you want proper instruments for any work you are about, use all expedients you can invent, rather than leave your work undone. For instance, if the poker be out of the way, or broken, stir the fire with the tongs; if the tongs be not at hand, use the muzzle of the _bellows_, the wrong end of the fire-shovel, the handle of the fire-brush, the end of a mop, or your master’s cane. If you want paper to singe a fowl, _tear_ the first book you see about the house. Wipe your shoes, for want of a clout, with the bottom of a curtain, or a damask napkin. Strip off your livery lace for garters. If the butler wants a jordan, he may use the great silver cup. “There are several ways of putting out candles, and you ought to be instructed in them all: you may run the candle-end against the wainscot, which puts the snuff out immediately: you may lay it on the ground, and tread the snuff out with your foot: you may hold it upside down, until it is choaked with its own grease; or cram it into the socket of the candlestick: you may whirl it round in your hand till it goes out: you may spit on your finger and thumb, and pinch the snuff till it goes out. The cook may run the candle’s nose into the meal-tub, or the groom into a vessel of oats, or a lock of hay, or a heap of litter: the house-maid may put her candle out by running it against a looking-glass, which nothing cleans so well as candle-snuff: but the quickest and best of all methods is, to blow it out with your breath, which leaves the candle clear, and readier to be lighted.