I don't know if you have ever tried to get rid of a certain portion of fresh butter every day, when you are living in a flat at the very top of chambers in London. Drop it out of the window once or twice, and it is an accident. Three times, and it is a coincidence. Four times, and the policeman on duty begins to think that there is more in it (if I may say so) than meets the eye.... But what about the fire, you will ask. Ah, yes; but I could foresee a day when there would be no fire. One has to look ahead. Besides, as I said, I hate waste. As any cook will tell you, the whole art of housekeeping can be summed up in three words--_Watch the butter_. More months passed and more pats of vaseline. Every day made an explanation more hopeless. I had thoughts at one time of an anonymous letter. Something in this style: "MADAM,--One who is your friend says beware of vaseline. All is discovered. Fly before it is too late. What is it makes the sea so salt? NaCl. Sodium Chloride. THE BLACK HAND" That would give her the impression, at any rate, that there _were_ two kinds of butter. Confound it all, by what right did she assume without asking that I had a preference for fresh? I have now been in my rooms nearly a year. Something must be done soon. My breakfasts are becoming a farce. Meals which I used to enjoy I now face as an ordeal. Is there to be no hope for me in the future? Well, there _is_ a chance? I shall have to wait until July; but with something definite in view I am content to wait. In July I hope to go to Switzerland for a month. Two days before returning home I shall write to my housekeeper. Having announced the day of my return, and given one or two instructions, I shall refer briefly to the pleasant holiday which I have been enjoying. I shall remark perhaps on the grandeur of the mountains and the smiling beauty of the valleys, I may mention the area in square miles of the country.... And I shall dwell upon the habits of the native. "... They live (I shall write) in extraordinary simplicity, chiefly upon the products of their farms. Their butter is the most delightful I have ever tried. It is a little salt to the taste, but after four weeks of it I begin to feel that I shall never be able to do without salt butter again! No doubt, as made in London it would be different from this, but I really think I must give it a trial. So when you are ordering the things I mentioned for me, will you ask for salt butter...." And if that fails there remains only the one consolation. In three years my lease is up. I shall take a new flat somewhere, and on the very first day I shall have a word with the new housekeeper. "By the way," I shall say, "about the butter...." THE WASHING