Of course, it is quite possible to marry for love, but I suspect that a good many bachelors marry so that they may not have to bother about the washing any more. That, anyhow, will be one of the reasons with me. "I offer you," I shall say, "my hand and heart--and the washing; and, oh, _do_ see that six tablecloths and my footer shorts don't get sent _every_ week." We affect Hampstead for some reason. Every week a number of shirts and things goes all the way out to Hampstead and back. I once sent a Panama to Paris to be cleaned, and for quite a year afterwards I used to lead the conversation round to travel, and then come out with, "Ah, I well remember when my Panama was in Paris...." So now, when I am asked at a dance, "Do you know Hampstead at all?" I reply, "Well, I only know it slightly myself; but my collars spend about half the year there. They are in with all the best people." I can believe that I am not popular in Hampstead, for I give my laundress a lot of trouble. Take a little thing like handkerchiefs. My rooms, as I have mentioned, are at the very top of the building, and there is no lift. Usually I wait till I am just out into the street before I discover that I have forgotten my handkerchief. It is quite impossible to climb all the stairs again, so I go and buy one for the day. This happens about three times a week. The result is that nearly all my handkerchiefs are single ones--there are no litters of twelve, no twins even, or triplets. Now when you have a lot of strangers in a drawer like this, with no family ties (or anything) to keep them together, what wonder if they gradually drift away from each other? My laundress does her best for them. She works a sort of birthmark in red cotton in the corner of each, so that she shall know them again. When I saw it first I was frightened. It looked like the password of some secret society. "Are there many aliens in Hampstead?" I asked the housekeeper. "I don't know, sir." "Well, look here, what I found on my handkerchief. That's a secret signal of some sort, you know, that's what it is. I shall get mixed up in some kind of anarchist row before I know where I am. Will you arrange about getting my clothes washed somewhere else, please?" "That's because you haven't got your name on it. She must mark them somehow." "Then, why doesn't she mark them with my name? So much simpler." "It isn't her business to mark your clothes," said the housekeeper. That, I suppose, is true; but it seems to me that she is giving us both a lot of unnecessary trouble. Every week I pick out this decorative design with a penknife, and every week she works it in again. When you consider the time and the red cotton wasted it becomes clear that a sixpenny bottle of marking ink and a quill pen would be cheaper to her in the long run.