“Wanted a Cook”

Comic dialogue.

The scene is a living room, Sunday morning. Father and his two daughters are disconsolate because they have no cook. The girls never mastered the culinary art. They are working girls holding down office jobs. They had inserted an advertisement, but nothing in the way of an applicant happens along until the bell rings and in stalks a young man of very neat appearance, cane, white-edged vest, 'n everything. The little family is surprised and asked to explain, the caller bluntly states he has applied for the job of cook. The girls are dubious and become more so when the young man hands over his card which states he is a lawyer. He then announces that he discovered his calling was the most non-essential game in the world, and therefore took it upon himself to learn cooking. James, the new cook, further explains that the average lawyer earns but $900 per year, and confesses he earned a good deal less than that last year. The girls state that they paid their last cook $50 per month (she had left to become a conductorette), and James accepts on the spot. He figures that room and board worth $20 per week and $50 wages per month really will net him $1,600 a year. Not bad he thinks. Before his entrance one of the girls utters a prayer asking the Deity to send them a cook. That is in questionable taste. The act will probably get over in the smaller houses, but has not the heft for the better bills.

Variety, 54:11 (05/09/1919)