more are there of which we know nothing?
What an embarrassing and miserable position,
too, is that of the lady to whom this letter is
addressed! Suppose that that lady had long
been on the look-out for a good cook, and has
at last found one. Suppose that she has gone
through much misery formerly, in giving her
"little dinners;" that the soup has come up
before her chief guests thick and yet weak,
ay, and tepid to boot. Suppose that her curries
have heretofore been watery, and that the
mutton has appeared at table with cinders in
the dish, and the gravy so cold that there was a
fine coating of white grease on its surface.
Suppose that this lady has suffered under such
horrors, and has at last secured an artist
whose soup is clear as sherry and strong as
brandy; whose entrées are hot and toothsome
and pretty to look at; whose pieces of
resistance are done to a turn, and whose sweets
are studies of colour to the eye and morsels of
rapture to the mouth— what must be the feelings
of this unhappy lady when, just as she is
congratulating herself on the possession of a
paragon, she receives that communication from
Mr. Treacleton. What is she to do? If she
discharge her cook, she tumbles back straight into
a morass of cold soup, ice bound gravy, and
public humiliation. If she retain that wicked,
wicked woman, she is in a manner conniving at
dishonesty and pandering to crime. Of all the
Small-Beer I have had to chronicle this is at
once the bitterest and most acid. I weaken
the tipple, as I register it, with my tears— tears
of sympathy for that injured lady, of indignation
against that abandoned woman.

Advise that honourable lady who has furnished
me with this letter, I cannot — or rather I can,
but it goes against my heart. I have seen something
— woe's me— of bad cooks, and something,
thank goodness, of good cooks. I have seen
bad dinners come up, and I have seen good
dinners come up. I have seen a worthy gentleman
sitting at the end of his table speechless,
unconscious of what was going on around
him, so absorbed was every faculty in one
subject, namely, Fish, under-done fish — raw
fish if you will have it— as fine a turbot as
ever came out of Billingsgate, pink as coral
when cut, and the flesh cleaving to the bones
for comfort and support. I have seen the
man at whose table that fish appeared, gaze
with a glassy eye upon the lady seated next to
him, without seeing her, or hearing one single
word of her sprightly conversation. What a
look of agony that was! The wretched man
would not have cared if he had heard at that
moment that half London was burnt down, or
that the British Possessions in India were lost
to the country for ever.

Such is the misery which it is in the power of
a bad cook to inflict upon her employer! While
with a good performer in the kitchen, a man
feels as he sits at his table that all is going on
well in the apartment beneath him, and he is
confident and tranquil. No wonder, then, that
it takes a great deal to induce one to part with
a good cook. Yet if that lady of whom we
have been studying the perilous position would
accept one little word of counsel from a Chronicler
of Small-Beer, I would softly whisper in
her ear that she should cast forth that Woman
of Belial to find her way to the workhouse, where
she shall deservedly end her days, and take to
her very heart of hearts, that paragon of grocers,
John Treacleton. Likewise Co.

Ah! What plots and conspiracies are going
on perpetually in the underground regions.
How is it that the servants we nourish, clothe,
and supply with a home, turn against us in
this way and league themselves with our great
enemies the tradespeople? Why are servants
so eager to give orders, so little ready to save
the pockets of their unfortunate masters?
It is enough to make one believe that there is
some distinct understanding between the
shopkeepers and these domestics, and that the more
orders the last give, the better it will be for
them when Christmas comes round. Is this so?
I don't know what other conclusion we can
arrive at after inspecting the weekly books.
What sums are down for mysterious soup-herbs,
what endless outlay on Bath-brick, emery-paper,
black-lead, and firewood. What large amounts
are expended annually in these uninteresting
articles. What a column of bright lovely sovereigns,
which we would like to spend in more
satisfactory gear! And how do we know that
these miserable articles have ever been
delivered? How do we know that a shilling's-
worth of mythical firewood does not appear
in the book occasionally, and that the tradesman
and the cook divide the shilling. And yet, how
utterly helpless we are. Suppose you say you
will limit the quantity of wood to be bought
in the week, what a malignant pleasure the
housemaid will have in informing you, when you
order your bedroom-fire to be lighted on Saturday
night, that "there ain't no wood in the
'ouse." Make any attempt to limit the supplies,
and see if your cook does not spoil your dinner,
and attribute it to the want of the particular
commodity the consumption of which you have
attempted to keep within rational — strictly,
rational — limits. Yes, you are helpless, and if
there is black-lead enough ordered every week to
polish your house all over, from the garret to
the kitchen, and "dips" enough for a general
illumination, it seems to me that you must put up
with it, or else with inconveniences inflicted in
a vindictive spirit, and with an ingenuity which
touches on the fiendish. Dips, black-lead, emerypaper,
sand, Bath-bricks, soda, and lucifer-matches,
are slowly but surely bringing me to
ruin; they are planting grey hairs in my head,
and undermining my pecuniary constitution. I
am a Small-Beer Chronicler, and small things
affect me. The dips mingle with my dreams, and
my temper is scrubbed raw with those quires of
emery-paper.

That letter quoted above, is no solitary
instance. I have a noble individual in my eye—
my mind's eye, that is — who received a letter of
similar import from his butcher. The worthy