"The walls were dark red and dirty; the curtains of thick padded and lined tapestry were stiff and sticky with grime. "In the drawing-room there was more really beautiful furniture and some exquisite Persian rugs on a dirty felt carpet. The curtains were of brocade, and there was a quantity of valuable china, much of it, sad to say, badly cracked. "It was a room in which only an experienced housemaid should have been trusted, and much time should have been allowed to clean it satisfactorily. But a cook and a young house-parlourmaid were responsible for all the work of the flat. In the bedrooms dresses and coats hung on pegs on the doors, and cardboard boxes were piled on the tops of wardrobes and under the beds. The bath was minus most of its paint, the double bedroom for the servants was furnished with a strange collection of lumber, and the kitchen was frankly dirty, one corner of it being taken up by a lovely old walnut wood tallboys in a shocking state of ill-usage. "Now, although this was certainly the worst of the flats and houses at which I looked, it was no uncommon thing to find dresses hanging out in the dust, boxes piled under beds, ill-kept baths and sinks, and floors so covered that it must take hours of work every week to keep them more or less clean. "Indeed the result of my house-hunting led me to think that the average woman decorates, furnishes, and arranges her house in order to make it as difficult as it can be made to keep it clean." [Illustration: _PLATE XIX_ AN ALL GAS KITCHEN IN A FLAT An all-gas kitchen in a modern flat fitted up by the Davis Gas Stove Co., Ltd. The illustration shows a gas cooker, with hot plate: a gas fire, with refuse destructor above. To the left of the fire-place is a circulator with storage tank over it, the pipes of which are carried through the linen airing cupboard, which is here shown open.] How we manage with One Servant in our Labour-Saving House. "I have always been interested in your labour-saving ideas. I married, and we were comfortably off. We have a tiny London house and I arranged to have gas fires, cooker, and circulator, service lift, and also a rubbish destructor, as I hate nasty-smelling dustbins. "We can only have one bathroom, but there is hot and cold water, a sink and slop sink on the top floor. "Gas fires are much improved and ours are really attractive to look at and well ventilated; but of course I would rather have coal to sit by, and we did have two coal fires at first; but now, since the war, I have all gas, because we are far worse off and living is so dear, and instead of two maids I now have only a general servant. We used to entertain in a mild sort of way a very great deal, but most of that naturally has come to an end.