If the cook is smart, the whole dinner could be served easily within an hour, and should one or two of the girls in the house be willing to assist (and who would not, under such circumstances?), the dinner might be sent to table in considerably less time. I can imagine some of my readers glancing over the bill of fare I have just written, and saying to themselves, “What a lot of saucepans we shall want on the fire at the same time!” This, however, is not the case; for I would remind you that one of the first points to learn in connection with the serving of tinned meats is that they should be warmed up in the tin before it is opened. We can, therefore, perform the astonishing trick of making hot our ox-tail soup, our curried rabbit, our asparagus, and our plum pudding in the same saucepan at the same time. I must, however, commence at the beginning. Our store cupboard is supposed to contain the following provisions in tins:—Ox-tail soup, preserved salmon, mayonnaise sauce, curried rabbit, asparagus, plum pudding, pine apple in syrup, as well as a bottle of jelly. I may, however, mention, with regard to the mayonnaise sauce, that should you have a bottle of oil in the house and a couple of eggs, it would be better to make some fresh sauce from the egg and oil direct. Our cupboard will also contain a bottle of pickled walnuts, a bottle of capers, a bottle of olives, and a bottle of anchovies. Of course we commence dinner with the soup, unless we happen to have in the house a Brunswick sausage, in which case a few thin slices of Brunswick sausage may be placed in a plate with a few of the anchovies, capers, olives, and a little pat of butter, as there are many persons who like to commence dinner with what is known as a _hors d’œuvre_, and I do not know a better mixture than the one I have named. But to return to the soup. In my opinion, of all provisions sold in tins at present, the soups are the greatest failures.