This is very much to be regretted; but there is a good old saying, that we must always make the best of a bad job. As a rule, the thick soups are better than the clear, and although I have mentioned ox-tail soup, I will later on give a list of the soups from which you may take your choice. Fortunately, all thick soups in tins can be very greatly improved by a very simple method. Make the thick soup hot in the tin, take the tin out of the hot water, open it, and pour the contents into a saucepan. Of course, if there are many persons to dinner, it would be necessary to warm up two tins, or even more. I will now describe the contents of the tin. The soup itself is not exactly thick, nor is it exactly clear. The bones of the tail, instead of being surrounded by the meat, are quite bare, and it looks as if the bone and the meat had had a quarrel, and they had mutually agreed never to speak to one another again, while the bone itself recalls a game known as “knuckle-bones.” To every pint of soup in the saucepan add as follows: a brimming dessertspoonful of brown thickening, or what French cooks know as brown roux. This brown roux looks like light-coloured chocolate. It keeps good for months, is very cheap, very useful, and I will describe how to make it by-and-by. Add, also, a brimming teaspoonful of extract of meat and half a glass of sherry. The effect of adding the brown roux is that when the roux is crumbled into the soup and gently stirred over the fire till it boils, it makes the soup thicker than it was before. It also makes it darker in colour, richer in flavour, and makes the divorce between the meat and the bone less conspicuous. The extract of meat also greatly adds to its nutritious properties, and gives additional colour. The sherry gives it flavour. Were I going to take the soup myself, I should also add a little cayenne pepper and lemon-juice, but we must be very cautious how we use cayenne, unless we know the taste of our guests.