Ben brought me occasional reports of her progress and whatever other news there might be; and I looked forward to these visits.

"We've been having the oddest applications," she said. "You have no idea how helpless people can be. They want advice on everything."

"The astonishing thing," I replied, "is that you can give it on such a variety of subjects."

"I don't know that I can," she said, "but I try to. And if one is fairly emphatic, it seems to satisfy them. I suppose decisiveness is very comforting. I see them positively adding an inch or two to their stature when I just say 'Yes' or 'No,' without any qualifications to dilute those excellent words. It's extraordinary how few people seem to have any initiative. And if one can't answer a question oneself," she went on, "one probably knows someone who can. I am requisitioning all my friends. Some day I shall put an awkward client on to you."

"I hope you will," I said.

"It isn't only that they ask ridiculous things," Ben confirmed, "but they so often want something more, for nothing. 'Now that I am here, they say, 'perhaps you could tell me this.' Only to-day a woman who had come about Spanish lessons for her daughter asked me, as she was leaving and had paid, what to do with a cook who stole. I asked her if she could cook well, and when she said 'Yes,' I told her to keep her, even if she stole diamonds and pearls. But it was nothing but odds and ends. 'Odds and ends are replaceable,' I said, 'but a cook isn't. The whole world wants cooks at this moment. Besides,' I said, 'to take odds and ends isn't stealing at all—to a cook. We all have our code, and a cook's code permits her to take odds and ends and smuggle them out of the house, where she would be a pillar of honesty in the midst, say, of money or jewellery.' Every one is dishonest somewhere. My father, I'm sure, is scrupulous in most ways, but he boasts that he always does railway companies if he can. The best parlourmaids take cigarettes. The nicest people pocket matches. If you want to know something about petty purloinings by what are supposed to be the elect, ask the secretary of any women's club. And I'm told that in quite crack men's clubs the nailbrushes have to be chained.

"We have every kind of question and from every nationality," she went on. "A little Japanese woman came in the other day to know how to get lessons in English—at least, not exactly lessons. What she wanted was someone to read English books aloud with her. Not to her; with her. They were to sit side by side so that she could follow the pronunciation. She knew English perfectly, but had some of the words most comically wrong. But how natural! Indeed I don't know how foreigners ever get our words right. This little Japanese pet was completely puzzled by 'July,' for instance. She used the word as if it rhymed with 'truly.' And why not? We say 'duly' and 'unduly' and 'unruly' and 'Julius' and 'Juliet.' And then we say, 'July.' It's too absurd."

"And could you help her?" I asked.

"As it happened, I could. I remembered an old friend of ours who was only too glad to do it, and she has been writing since to thank me for giving her the opportunity of meeting anyone so charming."

"What I want to know," I said, "is how the dickens do you know what to charge?"

"There are several ways," said Ben. "There's a fixed tariff for certain things, and there's so much a quarter of an hour for interviews. For shopping I charge a fee. A time-chart is kept and they pay so much an hour and for cabs. But I don't do that for strangers, or, at any rate, not for anyone without an introduction.

"Most people," she continued, "want either servants or rooms; and I send them on to registry offices or house-agents, and share the commission. I couldn't as a regular thing go into either of those businesses myself. There would be no time left.

"Let me think of some of our recent applications," she said. "Oh, yes! A South African woman came in yesterday to know something about London churches. She was to be here for six months and wanted to take sittings somewhere; could I tell her the best preachers? They must be evangelical or, at any rate, low. Anything in the nature of ritualism she couldn't endure.

"And then," she went on, "there was a widow from Cheltenham who wanted advice about dogs. What was the best kind of dog for a lady living alone? She had noticed that the dogs of most ladies of her own age—that is to say, elderly—were very disobedient; but that would be no use to her. She did not want a dog that had to be led. I said that the most popular dog with elderly ladies at the moment was a Sealyham or West Highland. White, in any case. But I doubted if they were very obedient.

"She asked whether I thought a lady dog or a gentleman dog the more suitable. Really, people are marvellous."

"And how did you charge her?" I asked.

"I didn't. I said that the matter was off my beat, and gave her the address of a dog-fancier.

"She thanked me and went away, and ten minutes later left a box of chocolates and a bunch of flowers.

"Then they want to know the best musical comedy; the name of a play that it would be all right to take auntie to; the place to buy the best linen sheets; whether or not one has to dress in certain restaurants; what time the National Gallery opens; how long a car takes to Hampton Court; how to get Sunday tickets for the Zoo; and where one has the best chance of seeing the Prince of Wales.

"But what most of them want," said Ben, "is what they call a pied-À-terre. You've no idea what hosts of people there are who would be happy if they only had a foot to the earth!—in other words, a week-end cottage. The simplest place in the world, where they can rough it, you know; return to nature, shake the horrible city off! But when we come to particulars there must always be a tennis lawn, hot water laid on, bathroom and so forth. Sometimes they insist on a telephone. I could let twenty of these places a week; and there's nothing so difficult to find! As it is, most of the real country folk, the cottagers proper, have been dispossessed in order that their homes may be converted for week-end purposes.

"Another thing we are always being asked for is a man and his wife. But they are difficult to get, too, because if the man's any good, the wife isn't, and if the wife is capable, the man drinks.

"But most of them," she added, "I don't see at all. Jan or Dolly disposes of them; and of course they don't pay. But we can't be rude to them. And after all, if you call your office, 'The Beck and Call,' you are rather, as Dolly says, 'arstin' for it.' In fact, Dolly wants us to make a charge for everything. He produced some placards the other day, which he had spent all Sunday on, to be hung up. One was for his own desk with:—

LONDON QUESTIONS
ANSWERED TO THE
BEST OF OUR ABILITY
2/6 EACH

on it.

"And one was for Jan:—

GENERAL INFORMATION
GIVEN
2/6 EACH REPLY

"And for my door:—

MISS STAVELEY
INTERVIEWS
AT THE RATE OF 10/6
FOR QUARTER OF AN HOUR
OR LESS

"But I wouldn't let him put them up. 'No,' I said. 'Save them for when you set up in business for yourself.'"

"'Me?' he said. 'Not 'arf. I'm going to be a bookie.' And I expect he is. 'I'd be one now,' he said, 'if I had any capital. That's all you want—a little capital to begin with. The rest is like shelling peas.'"

"'But in that case why are you here?' I asked him. 'Oughtn't you to be in a bookmaker's office?'"

"'I dare say I ought,' he said. 'But I prefer this job at the time.'"

"'Why?' I asked."

"'Because, to tell you the brutal truth, miss,' he replied, 'I like you.'"