"With a little careful management of the menu and the help of the lift the one maid could wait on eight people at lunch or dinner if necessary, and there was no necessity for the harassing 'Oh, we mustn't ask people to tea on Wednesday or to lunch on Friday' atmosphere. Needless to say, without a lift, telephone bells, and fitted 'washing rooms,' linoleum-covered floors, uncrowded rooms, gas cooker, and hot-water furnace, which does not require flue cleaning and needs but little attention, it would be impossible to keep a London house of the size spick and span, and run in the way in which people accustomed to a larger establishment expect. The furnace consumes about two scuttlefuls of coke a day, and needs paper, wood, and a little coal to start it. Half an hour suffices to heat the bath water. After breakfast rubbish of all kinds is burned, and but little heat is needed for the remainder of the day, unless baths at night are required. A kettle is kept on the furnace, or when any dish is to be simmered slowly it can stand on the furnace, and the gas stove burned only when quite necessary. In hot weather the furnace is let out after lunch." [Illustration: _PLATE XXIII_ AN ALL GAS KITCHEN IN A BASEMENT HOUSE This sketch shows the gas cooker with hot plate over. A small bungalow cooker for use when one or two persons only are to be served, and a coke boiler which heats the hot water required in the house (including 2 baths and 2 radiators) and is surmounted by a useful flat plate upon which a stock-pot or casserole can be kept simmering for hours without use of extra fuel. The coke boiler in this instance serves to heat the kitchen without further firing. On the left of the boiler is shown the service lift.] A Labour-Saving Country House.