Page 127 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

rangements were like.
The kitchen measured fifteen feet long by eight broad,
and half this space was taken up by the stoves and tables.
All the pots had to be kept on shelves out of reach, and
there was only room for one dustbin. This dustbin used to
be crammed full by midday, and the floor was normally an
inch deep in a compost of trampled food.
For firing we had nothing but three gas-stoves, without
ovens, and all joints had to be sent out to the bakery.
There was no larder. Our substitute for one was a half-
roofed shed in the yard, with a tree growing in the middle
of it. The meat, vegetables and so forth lay there on the bare
earth, raided by rats and cats.
There was no hot water laid on. Water for washing up
had to be heated in pans, and, as there was no room for
these on the stoves when meals were cooking, most of the
plates had to be washed in cold water. This, with soft soap
and the hard Paris water, meant scraping the grease off with
bits of newspaper.
We were so short of saucepans that I had to wash each
one as soon as it was done with, instead of leaving them till
the evening. This alone wasted probably an hour a day.
Owing to some scamping of expense in the installation,
the electric light usually fused at eight in the evening. The
PATRON would only allow us three candles in the kitchen,
and the cook said three were unlucky, so we had only two.
Our coffee-grinder was borrowed from a BISTRO near
by, and our dustbin and brooms from the concierge. After
the first week a quantity of linen did not come back from

1 Down and Out in Paris and London