We thought at first that the salary attached to the office of Governor of the Philippines was quite splendid, but we soon gave up any idea we might have had of saving a little of it for a rainy day. Our rainy day was upon us. It rained official obligations which we had to meet. The mere cost of lighting Malacañan was enough to keep a modest family in comfort. I don’t know about conditions at the Palace now, but I imagine they have not changed much, and I do know that Manila is a more expensive place in which to live than it was in my time. And yet there is serious talk of reducing the salary of the Governor-General. It seems a pity. This would place the office in a class with Ambassadorships which nobody but rich men can accept. The present salary, with nice management and a not too ambitious programme, will just about cover expenses, but I feel sorry for the wife of the Governor who must try to do what is expected of her on less.

My cook, who had been quite independent of me at Malate, became at Malacañan wholly unapproachable. I don’t know why, but so it was. He occupied quarters opening on one of the courts below and connected with the dining-room by an outside staircase up which I was never able to inveigle him. I had to deliver my orders from the top of the stairs and when he had listened to just as much as he cared to hear he would disappear through the kitchen door, and no amount of calling would bring him back. As the kitchen was an antechamber to a sort of Chinese catacombs, extending over a good part of the basement, I never ventured to follow him and I had to swallow my wrath as best I could.

But he was a jewel despite his eccentricities. He could produce the most elaborate and varied buffet suppers I ever saw and I never knew a cook who could make such a wonderful variety of cakes and fruit tarts and cream-puffs. He took a real delight in their construction, and for two days before a reception he would spend all his time filling every pan in the house with patisseries elaborately iced in every imaginable colour.