“I should say you’d been out of a situation for over a year?” she suggested.

I agreed, and knew she was expecting a confession, which, however, I did not make.

“Well, there’s something wrong with you,” she said, “and I don’t know what it is. You don’t drink,” she added conclusively, and I felt grateful. The strange thing was that as I sat in that chair, the personality of Annie Turner, the out-of-work, stole over me. I found myself listening in silence to statements which, in my own person, I would have hotly contested. I even began to be a little frightened that the adjutant might keep me in the home.

“There’s very little chance that you’ll get a place as cook,” she said, “without a reference. A cook’s work is important, and people won’t have a woman in their house without knowing all about her. In any case, you wouldn’t get a job in Hackney; they are nearly all Jews here and they cook for themselves. Still, you can go to the Labour Exchange and try your luck. Come back and tell me how you get on, if you like.”