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diff --git a/4930-h/4930-h.htm b/4930-h/4930-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc70dc9 --- /dev/null +++ b/4930-h/4930-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4014 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Paste Jewels, by John Kendrick Bangs</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Paste Jewels, by John Kendrick Bangs + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Paste Jewels + Being Seven Tales of Domestic Woe + + +Author: John Kendrick Bangs + + + +Release Date: September 16, 2014 [eBook #4930] +[This file was first posted on 27 March 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PASTE JEWELS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1897 Harper and Brothers edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/fpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Jane" +title= +"Jane" + src="images/fps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>PASTE JEWELS</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Being Seven Tales of Domestic +Woe</i></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +JOHN KENDRICK BANGS</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“They also serve +who only stand and wait.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative graphic" +title= +"Decorative graphic" + src="images/tps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">NEW YORK +& LONDON</span><br /> +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br /> +1897</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">TO</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">E. L. N.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> may interest the readers of this +collection of tales, if there should be any such, to know that +the incidents upon which the stories are based are unfortunately +wholly truthful. They have one and all come under the +author’s observation during the past ten years, and with +the exception of “Mr. Bradley’s Jewel,” +concerning whom it is expressly stated that she was employed +through lack of other available material, not one of the servants +herein made famous or infamous, as the case may be, was employed +except upon presentation of references written by responsible +persons that could properly have been given only to domestics of +the most sterling character. It is this last fact that +points the moral of the tales here presented, if it does not +adorn them.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">J. K. B.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Yonkers</span>, N. Y., 1897</p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Emancipation of +Thaddeus</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Mr. Bradley’s Jewel</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page45">45</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Unexpected Pomp at the +Perkins’s</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page71">71</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">An Object-Lesson</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page101">101</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Christmas Gifts of +Thaddeus</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page123">123</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Strange Banquet</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page149">149</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Jane</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page181">181</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>THE +EMANCIPATION OF THADDEUS</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">They</span> were very young, and possibly +too amiable. Thaddeus was but twenty-four and Bessie +twenty-two when they twain, made one, walked down the middle +aisle of St. Peter’s together.</p> +<p>Everybody remarked how amiable she looked even then; not that +a bride on her way out of church should look unamiable, of +course, but we all know how brides do look, as a rule, on such +occasions—looks difficult of analysis, but strangely +suggestive of determined timidity, if there can be such a quality +expressed in the human face. It is the natural expression +of one who knows that she has taken the most important step of +her life, and, on turning to face those who have been bidden to +witness the ceremony, observes that the sacredness of the +occasion is somewhat marred by the presence in church of the +unbidden curiosity-seekers, who have come for much the same +reason as that which prompts them to go to the theatre—to +enjoy the spectacle. But Bessie’s face showed nothing +but that intense amiability for which she had all her life long +been noted; and as for Thaddeus, he never ceased to smile from +the moment he turned and faced the congregation until the +carriage door closed upon him and his bride, and then, of course, +he had to, his lips being otherwise engaged. Indeed, +Thaddeus’s amiability was his greatest vice. He had +never been known to be ill-natured in his life but once, and that +was during the week that Bessie had kept him in suspense while +she was making up her mind not to say “No” to an +important proposition he had made—a proposition, +by-the-way, which resulted in this very ceremony, and was largely +responsible for the trials and tribulations which followed.</p> +<p>Thaddeus was rich—that is, he had an income and a +vocation; a charming little home was awaiting their coming, off +in a convenient suburb; and, best of all, Bessie was an +accomplished house-keeper, having studied under the best +mistresses of that art to be found in the country. And even +if she had not completely mastered the art of keeping house, +Thaddeus was confident that all would go well with them, for +their waitress was a jewel, inherited from Bessie’s mother, +and the cook, though somewhat advanced in years, was beyond +cavil, having been known to the family of Thaddeus for a longer +period than Thaddeus himself had been. The only uncertain +quantity in the household was Norah, the up-stairs girl, who was +not only new, but auburn-haired and of Celtic extraction.</p> +<p>Under such circumstances did the young couple start in life, +and many there were who looked upon them with envy. At +first, of course, the household did not run as smoothly as it +might have done—meals were late, and served with less +ceremony than either liked; but, as Bessie said, as she and +Thaddeus were finishing their breakfast one morning, “What +could you expect?”</p> +<p>To which Thaddeus, with his customary smile, replied +“What, indeed! We get along much better than I really +thought we should with old Ellen.”</p> +<p>Old Ellen was the cook, and she had been known to Thaddeus as +“Old Ellen” even before his lips were able to utter +the words.</p> +<p>“Ellen has her ways, and Jane has hers,” said +Bessie. “After Jane has got accustomed to +Ellen’s way of getting breakfast ready, she will know +better how to go about her own work. I think, perhaps, +cook’s manner is a little harsh. She made Jane cry +about the omelet this morning; but Jane is teary, +anyhow.”</p> +<p>“It wouldn’t do to have Ellen oily and Jane +watery,” Thaddeus answered. “They’d mix +worse than ever then. We’re in pretty good luck as it +is.”</p> +<p>“I think so, too, Teddy,” Bessie replied; +“but Jane is so foolish. She might have known better +than to send the square platter down to Ellen for an omelet, when +the omelet was five times as long as it was broad.”</p> +<p>“You always had square omelets, though, at your +house—that is, whenever I was there you had,” said +Thaddeus. “And I suppose Jane’s notion is that +as things happened under your mother’s régime, so +they ought to happen here.”</p> +<p>“Possibly that was her notion,” replied Bessie; +“but, then, in your family the omelets were oblong, and +Ellen is too old to depart from her traditions. Old people +get set in their ways, and as long as results are satisfactory, +we ought not to be captious about methods.”</p> +<p>“No, indeed, we shouldn’t,” smiled Thaddeus; +“but I don’t want you to give in to Ellen to too +great an extent, my dear. This is your home, and not my +mother’s, and your ways must be the ways of the +house.”</p> +<p>“Ellen is all right,” returned Bessie, “and +I am so delighted to have her, because, you know, Teddy dear, she +knows what you like even better, perhaps, than I +do—naturally so, having grown up in your family.”</p> +<p>“Reverse that, my dear. Our family grew up on +Ellen. She set the culinary pace at home. Mother +always let her have her own way, and it may be she is a little +spoiled.”</p> +<p>“Do you know, Teddy, I wonder that, having had Ellen for +so many years, your mother was willing to give her up.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I can explain that,” Thaddeus answered. +“I’m the youngest, you know; the rest of the family +were old enough to be weaned. Besides, father was getting +old, and he had a notion that the comforts of a hotel were +preferable to the discomforts of house-keeping. Father +likes to eat meals at all hours, and the annunciator system of +hotel life, by which you can summon anything in an instant, from +a shower-bath to a feast of terrapin, was rather pleasing to +him. He was always an admirer of the tales of the genii, +and he regards the electric button in a well-appointed hotel as +the nearest approach to the famous Aladdin lamp known to +science. You press the button, and your genii do the +rest.”</p> +<p>“But a hotel isn’t home,” said Bessie.</p> +<p>“A hotel isn’t this home,” answered +Thaddeus. “Love in a cottage for me; but, Bessie, +perhaps you—perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you +to speak to Jane and Ellen this morning about their +differences. I am an hour late now.”</p> +<p>Then Thaddeus kissed Bessie, and went down to business.</p> +<p>On Thaddeus’s departure Bessie’s cheerfulness also +deserted her, and for the first time in her life she felt that it +would do her good if she could fly out at +somebody—somebody, however, who was not endeared to the +heart of Thaddeus, or too intimately related to her own family, +which left no one but Norah upon whom to vent the displeasure +that she felt. Norah was, therefore, sought out, and +requested rather peremptorily to say how long it had been since +she had dusted the parlor; to which Norah was able truthfully to +answer, “This mornin’, mim.” Whereupon +Bessie’s desire to be disagreeable departed, and saying +that Norah could now clean the second-story front-room windows, +she withdrew to her own snug sewing-room until luncheon should be +served. She was just a trifle put out with Norah for being +so efficient. There is nothing so affronting to a young +house-keeper as the discovery that the inherited family jewels, +upon whom much reliance has been placed, are as paste alongside +of the newly acquired bauble from whom little was expected. +It was almost unkind in Norah, Bessie thought, to be so +impeccably conscientious when Jane and Ellen were developing +eccentricities; but there was the consoling thought that when +they had all been together a month or two longer, their +eccentricities would so shape themselves that they would fit into +one another, and ultimately bind the little domestic structure +more firmly together.</p> +<p>“Perhaps if I let them alone,” Bessie said to +herself, “they’ll forget their differences more +quickly. I guess, on the whole, I will say nothing about +it.”</p> +<p>That night, when Thaddeus came home, the first thing he said +to his wife was: “Well, I suppose you were awfully firm +this morning, eh? Went down into the kitchen and roared +like a little tyrant, eh? I really was afraid to read the +paper on the way home. Didn’t know but what I’d +read of a ‘Horrid Accident in High Life. Mrs. +Thaddeus Perkins’s Endeavor to Maintain Discipline in the +Household Results Fatally. Two Old Family Servants +Instantly Killed, and Three of the Kitchen Table Legs Broken by a +Domestic Explosion!’”</p> +<p>“Be serious, Thaddeus,” said Bessie.</p> +<p>And Thaddeus became instantly serious. +“They—they haven’t left us, have they?” +he whispered, in an awe-struck tone.</p> +<p>“No. I—I thought I’d let them fight it +out between themselves,” replied Bessie. “You +see, Thaddeus, servants are queer, and do not like to have their +differences settled by others than themselves. It’ll +work out all right, if we let them alone.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know but that you are right,” said +Thaddeus, after a few moments of thought. +“They’re both sensible girls, and capable of fighting +their own battles. Let’s have dinner. I’m +hungry as a bear.”</p> +<p>It was half-past six o’clock, and the usual hour for +dinner. At 8.10 dinner was served. The intervening +time was consumed by Jane and Ellen endeavoring to settle their +differences by the silent, sniffy method—that is, Jane +would sniff, and Ellen would be silent; and then Ellen would +sniff, and Jane would be silent. As for Thaddeus and +Bessie, they were amused rather than angry to have the dear +little broiled chicken Bessie had provided served on the large +beef-platter; and when the pease came up in a cut-glass +salad-dish, Thaddeus laughed outright, but Bessie’s eyes +grew moist. It was too evident that Jane and Ellen were not +on speaking terms, and there was strong need for some one to +break the ice. Fortunately, Bessie’s mother called +that evening, and some of her time was spent below-stairs. +What she said there only Ellen and Jane knew, but it had its +effect, and for two or three weeks the jewels worked almost as +satisfactorily as did Norah, the new girl, and quite +harmoniously.</p> +<p>“Bessie,” said Thaddeus, one night as they ate +their supper, “does it occur to you that the roast is a +little overdone to-night?”</p> +<p>“Yes, Teddy, it is very much overdone. I must +speak to Ellen about it. She is a little careless about +some things. I’ve told her several times that you +like your beef rare.”</p> +<p>“Well, I’d tell her again. Constant dropping +of water on its surface will wear away a stone, and I think, +perhaps, the constant dropping of an idea on a cook’s head +may wear away some of the thickest parts of that—at least, +until it is worn thin enough for the idea to get through to where +her brain ought to be. You might say to her, too, that for +several nights past dinner has been cold.”</p> +<p>“I’ll speak to her in the morning,” was +Bessie’s reply; and the dear little woman was true to her +purpose.</p> +<p>“She explained about the beef and the cold dinner, +Ted,” she said, when Thaddeus came home that afternoon.</p> +<p>“Satisfactorily to all hands, I hope?” said +Thaddeus, with his usual smile.</p> +<p>“Yes, perfectly. In fact, I wonder we hadn’t +thought of it ourselves. In the old home, you know, the +dinner-hour was six o’clock, while here it is half-past +six.”</p> +<p>“What has that got to do with it?” asked +Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“How obtuse of you, Teddy!” exclaimed +Bessie. “Don’t you see, the poor old thing has +been so used to six-o’clock dinners that she has everything +ready for us at six? And if we are half an hour late, of +course things get cold; or if they are kept in the oven, as was +the case with the beef last night, they are apt to be +overdone?”</p> +<p>“Why, of course. Ha! Ha! Wonder I +didn’t think of that,” laughed Thaddeus, though his +mirth did seem a little forced. +“But—she’s—she’s going to change, I +suppose?”</p> +<p>“She said she’d try,” Bessie replied. +“She was really so very nice about it, I hadn’t the +heart to scold her.”</p> +<p>“I’m glad,” was all Thaddeus said, and +during the rest of the meal he was silent. Once or twice he +seemed on the verge of saying something, but apparently changed +his mind.</p> +<p>“Are you tired to-night, dear?” said Bessie, as +the dessert was served.</p> +<p>“No. Why?” said Thaddeus, shortly.</p> +<p>“Oh, nothing. I thought you seemed a little +so,” Bessie answered. “You mustn’t work +too hard down-town.”</p> +<p>“No, my dear girl,” he said. “I +won’t, and I don’t. I was thinking all through +dinner about those girls down-stairs. Perhaps—perhaps +I had better talk to them, eh? You are so awfully +kind-hearted, and it does seem to me as though they imposed a +little on you, that’s all. The salad to-night was +atrocious. It should have been kept on the ice, instead of +which it comes to the table looking like a last year’s +bouquet.”</p> +<p>Bessie’s eyes grew watery. “I’m afraid +it was my fault,” she said. “I ought to have +looked after the salad myself. I always did at home. +I suppose Jane got it out expecting me to prepare it.”</p> +<p>“Oh, well, never mind,” said Thaddeus, desirous of +soothing the troubled soul of his wife. “I +wouldn’t have mentioned it, only Jane does too much +thinking, in a thoughtless way, anyhow. Servants +aren’t paid to think.”</p> +<p>“I’ll tell you what, Thaddeus,” said Bessie, +her spirits returning, “we are just as much to blame as +they are; we’ve taken too much for granted, and so have +they. Suppose we spend the evening putting together a set +of rules for the management of the house? It will be lots +of fun, and perhaps it will do the girls good. They ought +to understand that while our parents have had their +ways—and reasonable ways—there is no reason why we +should not have our ways.”</p> +<p>“In other words,” said Thaddeus, “what we +want to draw up is a sort of Declaration of +Independence.”</p> +<p>“That’s it, exactly,” Bessie replied.</p> +<p>“Better get a slate and write them on that,” +suggested Thaddeus, with a broad grin. “Then we can +rub out whatever Jane and Ellen don’t like.”</p> +<p>“I hate you when you are sarcastic,” said Bessie, +with a pout, and then she ran for her pad and pencil.</p> +<p>The evening was passed as she had suggested, and when they +retired that night the house of Perkins was provided with a +constitution and by-laws.</p> +<p>“I don’t suppose I shall recognize my surroundings +when I get back home to-night,” said Thaddeus, when he +waked up in the morning.</p> +<p>“Why not?” asked Bessie. “What strange +transformation is there to be?”</p> +<p>“The discipline will be so strict,” answered +Thaddeus. “I presume you will put those rules of ours +into operation right away?”</p> +<p>“I have been thinking about that,” said Bessie, +after a moment. “You see, Thad, there are a great +many things about running a house that neither you nor I are +familiar with yet, and it seems to me that maybe we’d +better wait a little while before we impose these rules on the +girls; it would be awkward to have to make changes afterwards, +you know.”</p> +<p>“There is something in that,” said Thaddeus; +“but, after all, not so much as you seem to think. +All rules have exceptions. I’ve no doubt that the +cook will take exception to most of them.”</p> +<p>“That’s what I’m afraid of, and as +she’s so old I kind of feel as if I ought to respect her +feelings a little more than we would Norah’s, for +instance. I can just tell you I shall make Norah stand +around.”</p> +<p>“I think it would be a good plan if you did,” said +Thaddeus. “I’m afraid Norah will die if you +don’t. She works too hard to be a real +servant—real servants stand around so much, you +know.”</p> +<p>“Don’t be flippant, Thaddeus. This is a very +serious matter. Norah is a good girl, as you say. She +works so much and so quickly that she really makes me tired, and +I’m constantly oppressed with the thought that she may get +through with whatever she is doing before I can think of +something else to occupy her time. But with her we need +have none of the feeling that we have with Jane and Ellen. +She is young, and susceptible to new impressions. She can +fall in with new rules, while the other two might chafe under +them. Now, I say we wait until we find out if we cannot let +well enough alone, and not raise discord in our home.”</p> +<p>“There never was an Eden without its serpent,” +sighed Thaddeus. “I don’t exactly like the idea +of fitting our rules to their idiosyncrasies.”</p> +<p>“It isn’t that, dear. I don’t want +that, either; but neither do we wish to unnecessarily hamper them +in their work by demanding that they shall do it our +way.”</p> +<p>“Oh, well, you are the President of the Republic,” +said Thaddeus. “You run matters to suit yourself, and +I believe we’ll have the most prosperous institution in the +world before we know it. If it were a business matter, +I’d have those rules or die; but I suppose you can’t +run a house as you would a business concern. I guess you +are right. Keep the rules a week. Why not submit +’em to your mother first?”</p> +<p>“I thought of that,” said Bessie. “But +then it occurred to me that as Ellen had served always under your +mother, it would be better if we consulted her.”</p> +<p>“I don’t,” said Thaddeus. +“She’d be sure to tell you not to have any rules, or, +if she didn’t, she would advise you to consult with the +cook in the matter, which would result in Ellen’s becoming +President, and you and I taxpayers. She used to run our old +house, and now see the consequences!”</p> +<p>“What are the consequences?” asked Bessie.</p> +<p>“Mother and father have been driven into a hotel, and +the children have all been married.”</p> +<p>“That’s awful,” laughed Bessie.</p> +<p>And so the rules were filed away for future reference. +That they would have remained on file for an indefinite period if +Thaddeus had not asked a friend to spend a few weeks with him, I +do not doubt. Bessie grew daily more mistrustful of their +value, and Thaddeus himself preferred the comfort of a quiet +though somewhat irregular mode of living to the turmoil likely to +follow the imposition of obnoxious regulations upon the +aristocrats below-stairs. But the coming of +Thaddeus’s friend made a difference.</p> +<p>The friend was an elderly man, with a business and a +system. He was a man, for instance, who all his life had +breakfasted at seven, lunched at one, and dined at six-thirty, of +which Thaddeus was aware when he invited him to make his suburban +home his headquarters while his own house was being renovated and +his family abroad. Thaddeus was also aware that the +breakfast and dinner hours under Bessie’s régime +were nominally those of his friend, and so he was able to assure +Mr. Liscomb that his coming would in no way disturb the usual +serenity of the domestic pond. The trusting friend +came. Breakfast number one was served fifteen minutes after +the hour, and for the first time in ten years Mr. Liscomb was +late in arriving at his office. He had not quite recovered +from the chagrin consequent upon his tardiness when that evening +he sat down to dinner at Thaddeus’s house, served an hour +and ten minutes late, Ellen having been summoned by wire to town +to buy a pair of shoes for one of her sister’s children, +the sister herself suffering from poverty and toothache.</p> +<p>“I hope you were not delayed seriously this morning, Mr. +Liscomb,” said Bessie, after dinner.</p> +<p>“Oh no, not at all!” returned Liscomb, polite +enough to tell an untruth, although its opposite was also a part +of his system.</p> +<p>“Ellen must be more prompt with breakfast,” said +Thaddeus. “Seven, sharp, is the hour. Did you +speak to her about it?”</p> +<p>“No, but I intend to,” answered Bessie. +“I’ll tell her the first thing after breakfast +to-morrow. I meant to have spoken about it to-day, but when +I got down-stairs she had gone out.”</p> +<p>“Was it her day out?”</p> +<p>“No; but her sister is sick, and she was sent for. +It was all right. She left word where she was going with +Jane.”</p> +<p>“That was very considerate of her,” said Liscomb, +politely.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Bessie. “Ellen’s a +splendid woman.”</p> +<p>Later on in the evening, about half-past nine, when Mr. +Liscomb, wearied with the excitement of the first irregular day +he had known from boyhood, retired, Thaddeus took occasion to +say:</p> +<p>“Bessie, I think you’d better tell Ellen about +having breakfast promptly in the morning to-night, before we go +to bed.”</p> +<p>“Very well,” returned Bessie, “I’ll go +down now and do it;” and down she went. In a moment +she was back. “The poor thing was so tired,” +she said, “that she went to bed as soon as dinner was +cooked, so I couldn’t tell her.”</p> +<p>“Why didn’t you send up word to her by +Jane?”</p> +<p>“Oh, she <i>must</i> be asleep by this time!”</p> +<p>“Oh!” said Thaddeus.</p> +<p>It was nine o’clock the next morning when Ellen opened +her eyes. Breakfast had been served a half-hour earlier, +Jane and Bessie having cooked some eggs, which Bessie ate alone, +since Thaddeus and Liscomb were compelled to take the +eight-o’clock train to town, hungry and forlorn. +Liscomb was very good-natured about it to Thaddeus, but his +book-keeper had a woful tale to tell of his employer’s +irritability when he returned home that night. As for +Thaddeus, he spoke his mind very plainly—to Liscomb. +Bessie never knew what he said, nor did any of the servants; but +he said it to Liscomb, and, as Liscomb remarked later, he seemed +like somebody else altogether while speaking, he was so fierce +and determined about it all. That night a telegram came +from Liscomb, saying that he had been unexpectedly delayed, and +that, as there were several matters requiring his attention at +his own home, he thought he would not be up again until +Sunday.</p> +<p>Bessie was relieved, and Thaddeus was mad.</p> +<p>“We <i>must</i> have those rules,” he said.</p> +<p>And so they were brought out. Ellen received them with +stolid indifference; Jane with indignation, if the slamming of +doors in various parts of the house that day betokened +anything. Norah accepted them without a murmur. It +made no difference to Norah on what day she swept the parlor, nor +did she seem to care very much because her “days at +home” were shifted, so that her day out was Friday instead +of Thursday.</p> +<p>“Has Ellen said anything about the rules, my +dear?” asked Thaddeus, a week or two later.</p> +<p>“Not a word,” returned Bessie.</p> +<p>“Has she ‘looked’ anything?”</p> +<p>“Volumes,” Bessie answered.</p> +<p>“Does she take exception to any of them?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Bessie, “and I’ve +discovered why, too. She hasn’t read them.”</p> +<p>Thaddeus was silent for a minute. Then he said, quite +firmly for him, “She must read them.”</p> +<p>“<i>Must</i> is a strong word, Teddy,” Bessie +replied, “particularly since Ellen can’t +read.”</p> +<p>“Then you ought to read them to her.”</p> +<p>“That’s what I think,” Bessie answered, +amiably. “I’m going to do it very +soon—day after to-morrow, I guess.”</p> +<p>“What has Jane said?” asked Thaddeus, biting his +lip.</p> +<p>Bessie colored. Jane had expressed herself with +considerable force, and Bessie had been a little afraid to tell +Thaddeus what she had said and done.</p> +<p>“Oh, nothing much,” she answered. +“She—she said she’d never worn caps like a +common servant, and wasn’t going to begin now; and then she +didn’t like having to clean the silver on Saturday +afternoons, because the silver-powder got into her finger-nails; +and that really is too bad, Teddy, because Saturday night is the +night her friends come to call, and silver-powder is awfully hard +to get out of your nails, you know; and, of course, a girl wants +to appear neat and clean when she has callers.”</p> +<p>“Of course,” said Thaddeus. “And I +judge by the appearance of the brass fenders that she +doesn’t like to polish them up on Wednesday because it +gives her a backache on Thursday, which is her day +out.”</p> +<p>Bessie’s eyes took on their watery aspect again.</p> +<p>“Do the fenders look so very badly, Ted?” she +asked.</p> +<p>“They’re atrocious,” said Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“I’m sorry, dear; but I did my best. I +polished them myself this afternoon; Jane had to go to a +funeral.”</p> +<p>“Oh, my!” cried Thaddeus. “This +subject’s too much for me. Let’s go +out—somewhere, anywhere—to a concert. Music +hath its charms to soothe a savage breast, and my breast is +simply the very essence of wildness to-night. Put on your +things, Bess, and hurry, or I’ll suffocate.”</p> +<p>Bessie did as she was told, and before ten o’clock the +happy pair had forgotten their woes, nor do I think they would +have remembered them again that night had they not found on their +return home that they were locked out.</p> +<p>At this even the too amiable Bessie was angry—very +angry—unjustly, as it turned out afterwards.</p> +<p>“They weren’t to blame, after all,” she +explained to Thaddeus, when he came home the next night. +“I spoke to them about it, and they all thought we’d +spend the night with your mother and father at the +Oxford.”</p> +<p>“They’re a thoughtful lot,” said +Thaddeus.</p> +<p>And so time passed. The “treasures” did as +they pleased; the dubious auburn-haired Norah continued her +aggravating efficiency. Bessie’s days were spent in +anticipation of an interview of an unpleasant nature with Jane or +Ellen “to-morrow.” Thaddeus’s former +smile grew less perpetual—that is, it was always visible +when Bessie was before him, but when Bessie was elsewhere, so +also was the token of Thaddeus’s amiability. He +chafed under the tyranny, but it never occurred to him but once +that it would be well for him to interview Ellen and Jane; and +then, summoning them fiercely, he addressed them mildly, ended +the audience with a smile, and felt himself beneath their sway +more than ever.</p> +<p>Then something happened. A day came and went, and the +morrow thereof found Thaddeus dethroned from even his nominal +position of head of the house. There was a young Thaddeus, +an eight-pound Thaddeus, a round, red-cheeked, bald-headed +Thaddeus that looked more like the Thaddeus of old than Thaddeus +did himself; and then, at a period in which man feels himself the +least among the insignificant, did our hero find happiness +unalloyed once more, for to the pride of being a father was added +the satisfaction of seeing Jane and Ellen acknowledge a +superior. Make no mistake, you who read. It was not +to Thaddeus junior that these gems bowed down. It was to +the good woman who came in to care for the little one and his +mother that they humbled themselves.</p> +<p>“She’s great,” said Thaddeus to himself, as +he watched Jane bustling about to obey the command of the +temporary mistress of the situation as she had never bustled +before.</p> +<p>“She’s a second Elizabeth,” chuckled +Thaddeus, as he listened to an order passed down the dumb-waiter +shaft from the stout empress of the moment to the trembling queen +of the kitchen.</p> +<p>“She’s a little dictatorial,” whispered +Thaddeus to his newspaper, when the monarch of all she surveyed +gave him <i>his</i> orders. “But there are times, +even in a Republic like this, when a dictator is an +advantage. I hate to see a woman cry, but the way Jane wept +at the routing Mrs. Brown gave her this morning was a finer sight +than Niagara.”</p> +<p>But, alas! this happy state of affairs could not last +forever. Thaddeus was just beginning to get on easy terms +with Mrs. Brown when she was summoned elsewhere.</p> +<p>“Change of heir is necessary for one in her +profession,” sighed Thaddeus; and then, when he thought of +resuming the reins himself, he sighed again, and wished that Mrs. +Brown might have remained a fixture in the household +forever. “Still,” he added, more to comfort +himself than because he had any decided convictions to +express—“still, a baby in the house will make a +difference, and Ellen and Jane will behave better now that +Bessie’s added responsibilities put them more upon their +honor.”</p> +<p>For a time Thaddeus’s prophecy was correct. Ellen +and Jane did do better for nearly two months, and then—but +why repeat the old story? Then they lapsed, that is all, +and became more tyrannical than ever. Bessie was so busy +with little Ted that the household affairs outside of the nursery +came under their exclusive control. Thaddeus stood +it—I was going to say nobly, but I think it were better put +ignobly—but he had a good excuse for so doing.</p> +<p>“A baby is an awful care to its mother,” he said; +“a responsibility that takes up her whole time and +attention. I don’t think I’d better complicate +matters by getting into a row with the servants.”</p> +<p>And so it went. A year and another year passed. +The pretty home was beginning to look old. The bloom of its +youth had most improperly faded—for surely a home should +never fade—but there was the boy, a growing delight to his +father, so why complain? Better this easy-going life than +one of domestic contention.</p> +<p>Then on a sudden the boy fell ill. The doctor +came—shook his head gravely.</p> +<p>“You must take him to the sea-shore,” he +said. “It is his only chance.”</p> +<p>And to the sea-shore they went, leaving the house in charge of +the treasures.</p> +<p>“I have confidence in you,” said Thaddeus to Jane +and Ellen on the morning of the departure, “so I have +decided to leave the house open in your care. Mrs. Perkins +wants you to keep it as you would if she were here. +Whatever you need to make yourselves comfortable, you may +get. Good-bye.”</p> +<p>“What a comfort it is,” said Bessie, when they had +reached the sea-shore, and were indulging in their first bit of +that woful luxury, homesickness—“what a comfort it is +to feel that the girls are there to look after things! An +empty house is such a temptation to thieves.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Thaddeus. “I hope they +won’t entertain too much, though.”</p> +<p>“Ellen and Jane are too old for that sort of +thing,” Bessie answered.</p> +<p>“How about Norah?”</p> +<p>“Oh, I forgot to tell you. There was nothing +really for Norah to do, so I told her she could go off and stay +with her mother on board-wages.”</p> +<p>“Good!” said Thaddeus, with a pleased smile. +“It isn’t a bad idea to save, particularly when you +are staying at the sea-shore.”</p> +<p>In this contented frame of mind they lived for several +weeks. The boy grew stronger every day, and finally +Thaddeus felt that the child was well enough to warrant his +running back home for a night, “just to see how things were +going.” That the girls were faithful, of course, he +did not doubt; the regularity with which letters addressed to him +at home—and they were numerous—reached him convinced +him of that; but the hamper containing the week’s wash, +which Ellen and Jane were to send, and which had been expected on +Thursday of the preceding week, had failed for once to arrive; +the boy had worn one dress four days, Thaddeus’s collars +were getting low, and altogether he was just a little uneasy +about things. So he availed himself of his opportunity and +went home, taking with him a friend, in consideration of whom he +telegraphed ahead to Ellen to prepare a good breakfast, not +caring for dinner, since he and his companion expected to dine at +the club and go to the theatre before going out to his home.</p> +<p>The result would have been fatal to Bessie’s peace of +mind had she heard of it during her absence from home. But +Thaddeus never told her, until it was a matter of ancient +history, that when he arrived at home, a little after midnight, +he found the place deserted, and was compelled to usher his +friend in through the parlor window; that from top to bottom the +mansion gave evidence of not having seen a broom or a dust-brush +since the departure of the family; that Jane had not been seen in +the neighborhood for one full week—this came from those +living on adjoining property; that Ellen had been absent since +early that morning, and was not expected to return for three +days; and, crowning act of infamy, that he, Thaddeus, and his +friend were compelled to breakfast next morning upon a half of a +custard pie, a bit mouldy, found by the lord of the manor on the +fast-melting remains of a cake of ice in the refrigerator. +Whether it would have happened if Thaddeus had not been +accompanied by a friend, whose laughter incited him to great +deeds, or not I am not prepared to say, but something important +did happen. Thaddeus rose to the occasion, and committed an +act, and committed it thoroughly. The Thaddeus of old, the +meek, long-suffering, too amiable Thaddeus, disappeared. +The famous smile was given no chance to play. His wife was +absent, and the smile was far away with her. Thaddeus, with +one fell blow, burst his fetters and became free.</p> +<p>That afternoon, when he had returned to the seaboard, Bessie +asked him, “How was the house?”</p> +<p>“Beautiful,” said Thaddeus, quite truthfully; for +it was.</p> +<p>“Did Ellen say anything about the hamper?”</p> +<p>“Not a word.”</p> +<p>“Did you speak to her about it?”</p> +<p>“Nope.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Teddy! How could you forget it?”</p> +<p>To the lasting honor of Thaddeus be it said that he bore up +under this unflinchingly.</p> +<p>“Did you have a good breakfast, Ted?” Bessie +asked, returning to the subject later.</p> +<p>“Very,” said Thaddeus, thinking of the hearty meal +he and his fellow-sufferer had eaten at the club after getting +back to town. “We had a tomato omelet, coffee, toast, +rice cakes, tenderloin steak, and grits.”</p> +<p>“Dear me!” smiled Bessie; she was so glad her +Teddy had been so well treated. “All that? +Ellen must have laid herself out.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Thaddeus; “I think she +did.”</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>All the following week Thaddeus seemed to have a load on his +mind—a load which he resolutely refused to share with his +wife—and on Friday he found it necessary to go up to +town.</p> +<p>“I thought this was your vacation,” remonstrated +Bessie.</p> +<p>“Well, so it is,” said Thaddeus. +“But—but I’ve got one or two matters to attend +to—matters of very great importance—so that I think +I’ll have to go.”</p> +<p>“If you must, you must,” said Bessie. +“But I think it’s horrid of your partner to make you +go back to town this hot weather.”</p> +<p>“Don’t be cross with my partner,” said +Thaddeus; “especially my partner in this matter.”</p> +<p>“Have you different partners for different +matters?” queried Bessie.</p> +<p>“Never mind about that, my dear; you’ll know all +about it in time, so don’t worry.”</p> +<p>“All right, Teddy. But I don’t like to have +you running away from me when I’m at a hotel. +I’d rather be home, anyhow. Can’t I go with +you? Little Ted is well enough now to go home.”</p> +<p>“Not this time; but you can go up next Wednesday if you +wish,” returned Thaddeus, with a slight show of +embarrassment.</p> +<p>And so it was settled, and Thaddeus went to town. On +Wednesday they all left the sea-shore to return to +Phillipseburg.</p> +<p>“Oh, how lovely it looks!” ejaculated Bessie, as +she entered the house, Norah having opened the door. +“But—er—where’s Jane, Norah?”</p> +<p>“Cookin’ the dinner, mim.”</p> +<p>“Why, Jane can’t cook.”</p> +<p>“If you please, mim, this is a new Jane.”</p> +<p>Bessie’s parasol fell to the floor. “A +wha-a-at?” she cried.</p> +<p>“A new Jane. Misther Perkins has dispinsed with +old Jane and Ellen, mim.”</p> +<p>Bessie rushed up-stairs to her room and cried. The shock +was too sudden. She longed for Thaddeus, who had remained +at the station collecting the bath-tubs and other luxuries of the +baby from the luggage-van, to come. What did it all +mean? Jane and Ellen gone! New girls in their +places!</p> +<p>And then Thaddeus came, and made all plain to the little +woman, and when he was all through she was satisfied. He +had discharged the tyrants, and had supplied their places. +The latter was the important business which had taken him to +town.</p> +<p>“But, Teddy,” Bessie said, with a smile, when she +had heard all, “how did poor mild little you ever have the +courage to face those two women and give them their +discharge?”</p> +<p>Teddy blushed. “I didn’t,” he +answered, meekly; “I wrote it.”</p> +<p>Five years have passed since then, and all has gone +well. Thaddeus has remained free, and, as he proudly +observes, domestics now tremble at his approach—that is, +all except Norah, who remembers him as of old. Ellen and +Jane are living together in affluence, having saved their wages +for nearly the whole of their term of +“service.” Bessie is happy in the possession of +two fine boys, to whom all her attention—all save a little +reserved for Thaddeus—is given; and, as for the dubious, +auburn-haired, and distinctly Celtic Norah, Thaddeus is afraid +that she is developing into a “treasure.”</p> +<p>“Why do you think so?” Bessie asked him, when he +first expressed that fear.</p> +<p>“Oh, she has the symptoms,” returned +Thaddeus. “She has taken three nights off this +week.”</p> +<h2><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>MR. +BRADLEY’S JEWEL</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Thaddeus</span> was tired, and, therefore, +Thaddeus was grumpy. One premise only was necessary for the +conclusion—in fact, it was the only premise upon which a +conclusion involving Thaddeus’s grumpiness could find a +foothold. If Thaddeus felt rested, everything in the world +could go wrong and he would smile as sweetly as ever; but with +the slightest trace of weariness in his system the smile would +fade, wrinkles would gather on his forehead, and grumpiness set +in whether things were right or wrong. On this special +occasion to which I refer, things were just wrong enough to give +him a decent excuse—outside of his weariness—for his +irritation. Norah, the housemaid, had officiously +undertaken to cover up the shortcomings of John, who should have +blacked Thaddeus’s boots, and who had taken his day off +without preparing the extra pair which the lord of the manor had +expected to wear that evening. It was nice of the +housemaid, of course, to try to black the extra pair to keep John +out of trouble, but she might have been more +discriminating. It was not necessary for her to polish, +until they shone like Claude Lorraine glasses, two right boots, +one of which, paradoxical as it may seem, was consequently the +wrong boot; so that when Thaddeus came to dress for the +evening’s diversion there was nowhere to be found in his +shoe-box a bit of leathern gear in which his left foot might +appear in polite society to advantage. Possibly Thaddeus +might have endured the pain of a right boot on a left foot, had +not Norah unfortunately chosen for that member a box-toed boot, +while for the right she had selected one with a very decided +acute angle at its toe-end.</p> +<p>“Just like a woman!” ejaculated Thaddeus, +angrily.</p> +<p>“Yes,” returned Bessie, missing Thaddeus’s +point slightly. “It was very thoughtful of Norah to +look after John’s work, knowing how important it was to +you.”</p> +<p>Fortunately Thaddeus was out of breath trying to shine up the +other pointed-toe shoe, so that his only reply to this was a +look, which Bessie, absorbed as she was in putting the studs in +Thaddeus’s shirt, did not see. If she had seen it, I +doubt if she would have been so entirely happy as the tender +little song she was humming softly to herself seemed to indicate +that she was.</p> +<p>“Some people are born lucky!” growled Thaddeus, as +he finished rubbing up the left boot, giving it a satin finish +which hardly matched the luminous brilliance of its mate, though +he said it would do. “There’s Bradley, now; he +never has any domestic woes of this sort, and he pays just half +what we do for his servants.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Mr. Bradley. I don’t like him!” +ejaculated Bessie. “You are always talking about Mr. +Bradley, as if he had an automaton for a servant.”</p> +<p>“No, I don’t say he has an automaton,” +returned Thaddeus. “Automatons don’t often +work, and Bradley’s jewel does. Her name is Mary, but +Bradley always calls her his jewel.”</p> +<p>“I’ve heard of jewels,” said Bessie, +thinking of the two Thaddeus and she had begun their married life +with, “but they’ve always seemed to me to be paste +emeralds—awfully green, and not worth much.”</p> +<p>“There’s no paste emerald about Bradley’s +girl,” said Thaddeus. “Why, he says that woman +has been in Mrs. Bradley’s employ for seven weeks now, and +she hasn’t broken a bit of china; never sweeps dust under +the beds or bureaus; keeps the silver polished so that it looks +as if it were solid; gets up at six every morning; cooks well; is +civil, sober, industrious; has no hangers-on—”</p> +<p>“Is Mr. Bradley a realist or a romancer?” asked +Bessie.</p> +<p>“Why do you ask that?” replied Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“That jewel story sounds like an <i>Arabian Nights</i> +tale,” said Bessie. “I don’t believe that +it is more than half true, and that half is +exaggerated.”</p> +<p>“Well, it <i>is</i> true,” said Thaddeus. +“And, what is more, the girl helps in the washing, plays +with the children, and on her days out she stays at home and does +sewing.”</p> +<p>Bessie laughed. “She must be a regular +Koh-i-noor,” she said. “I suppose Mr. Bradley +pays her a thousand dollars a month.”</p> +<p>“No, he doesn’t; he pays her twelve,” said +Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“Then he is just what I said he was,” snapped +Bessie—“a mean thing. The idea—twelve +dollars a month for all that! Why, if she could prove she +was all that you say she is, she could make ten times that amount +by exhibiting herself. She is a curiosity. But if I +were Mrs. Bradley I wouldn’t have her in the house. +So many virtues piled one on the other are sure to make an unsafe +structure, and I believe some poor, miserable little vice will +crop out somewhere and upset the whole thing.”</p> +<p>“You are jealous,” said Thaddeus; and then he went +out.</p> +<p>The next day, meeting his friend Bradley on the street, +Thaddeus greeted him with a smile, and said, “Mrs. Perkins +thinks you ought to take up literature.”</p> +<p>“Why so?” asked Bradley.</p> +<p>“She thinks De Foe and Scott and Dumas and Stevenson +would be thrown into the depths of oblivion if you were to write +up that jewel of yours,” said Thaddeus. “She +thinks your Mary is one of the finest, most imaginative creations +of modern days.”</p> +<p>“She doubts her existence, eh?” smiled +Bradley.</p> +<p>“Well, she thinks she’s more likely to be a myth +than a Smith,” said Thaddeus. “She told me to +ask you if Mary has a twin-sister, and to say that if you hear of +her having any relatives at all—and no domestic ever lived +who hadn’t—to send her their addresses. +She’d like to employ a few.”</p> +<p>“I am sorry Mrs. Perkins is so blinded by +jealousy,” said Bradley, with a smile. “And I +regret to say that Mary hasn’t a cousin on the whole police +force, or, in fact, any kind of a relative whatsoever, unless she +prevaricates.”</p> +<p>“Too bad,” said Thaddeus. “I had a +vague hope we could stock up on jewels of her kind. Where +did you get her, anyhow—Tiffany’s?”</p> +<p>“No. At an unintelligence office,” said +Bradley. “She was a last resort. We had to have +some one, and she was the only girl there. We took her for +a week on trial without references, and, by Jove! she turned out +a wonder.”</p> +<p>Thaddeus grinned, and said: “Give her time, +Bradley. By-the-way, at what hours is she on +exhibition? I’d like to see her.”</p> +<p>“Come up to-night and test the truth of what I +say,” said Bradley. “I won’t let anybody +know you are coming, and you’ll see her just as we see +her. What do you say?”</p> +<p>The temptation was too strong for Thaddeus to resist, and so +it was that Bessie received a telegram that afternoon from her +beloved, stating that he would dine with Bradley, and return home +on a late train. The telegram concluded with the line, +“<i>I’m going to appraise the escaped +crown-jewel</i>.”</p> +<p>Bessie chuckled at this, and stayed up until long after the +arrival of the last train, so interested was she to hear from +Thaddeus all about the Bradley jewel, who, as she said, +“seemed too good to be true”; but she was finally +forced to retire disappointed and somewhat anxious, for Thaddeus +did not return home that night.</p> +<p>Somewhere in the neighborhood of eight o’clock the next +morning Bessie received a second telegram, which read as +follows:</p> +<p>“<i>Do not worry</i>. <i>I am all right</i>. +<i>Will be home about nine</i>, <i>Have breakfast</i>.”</p> +<p>“Now I wonder what on earth can have kept him?” +Bessie said. “Something has happened, I am +sure. Perhaps an accident on the elevated, or +maybe—”</p> +<p>She did not finish the sentence, but rushed into the library +and snatched up the morning paper, scanning its every column in +the expectation, if not hope, of finding that some horrible +disaster had occurred, in which her Thaddeus might have been +involved. The paper disclosed nothing of the sort. +Only a few commonplace murders, the usual assortment of +defalcations, baseball prophecies, and political prognostications +could Bessie discover therein. Never, in fact, had the +newspaper seemed so uninteresting—not even a +bargain-counter announcement was there—and with an +impatient, petulant stamp of her little foot she threw the +journal from her and returned to the dining-room. It was +then half-past eight, and, hardly able to contain herself with +excitement, Bessie sat down by the window, and almost, if not +quite, counted every swing of the pendulum that pushed the hands +of the clock on to the desired hour. She could not eat, and +not until curiosity was gratified as to what it was that had +detained Thaddeus, and that, more singular still, was bringing +him home instead of sending him to business at nine o’clock +in the morning, could she, in fact, do anything?</p> +<p>Finally, the grinding sounds of carriage wheels on the gravel +road without were heard, and in an instant Bessie was at the door +to welcome the prodigal. And what a Thaddeus it was that +came home that morning! His eyes showed conclusively that +he had had no sleep, save the more or less unsatisfactory napping +which suburban residents get on the trains. His beautiful +pearl-gray scarf, that so became him when he left home the +previous morning, was not anywhere in sight. His cheek was +scratched, and every button that his vest had ever known had +taken wings unto itself and flown, Bessie knew not whither. +And yet, tired out as he was, dishevelled as he was, Thaddeus was +not grumpy, but inclined rather to explosive laughter as he +entered the house.</p> +<p>“Why, Thaddeus!” cried Bessie, in alarm. +“What on earth is the matter with you? You look as if +you had been in a riot.”</p> +<p>“That’s a pretty good guess, my dear,” +returned Thaddeus, with a laugh, “but not quite the right +one.”</p> +<p>“But tell me, what have you been doing? Where have +you been?”</p> +<p>“At Bradley’s, my love.”</p> +<p>“You haven’t been—been quarrelling with Mr. +Bradley?”</p> +<p>“No. Bradley’s jewel has proved your +husband’s Waterloo, as well as the Sedan of Bradley +himself,” returned Thaddeus, throwing his head back and +bursting out into a loud guffaw.</p> +<p>“I am not good at riddles, Thaddeus,” said Bessie, +“and I haven’t laughed much myself since that last +train came in last night and didn’t bring you. I +think you might tell me—”</p> +<p>“Why, my dear little girl,” said Thaddeus, walking +to her side and kissing her, “I didn’t mean to keep +you in suspense, and of course I’ll tell you.”</p> +<p>Then, as they ate their breakfast, Thaddeus explained. +“I told Bradley that you were a sceptic on the subject of +his jewel,” he said, “and he offered to prove that +she was eighteen carats fine by taking me home with him, an +unexpected guest, by which act he would test her value to my +satisfaction. Of course, having cast doubts upon her +excellence, I had to accept, and at half-past five he and I +boarded an elevated train for Harlem. At six we stood +before Bradley’s front door, and as he had left his keys at +the office, he rang the bell and waited. It was a long +wait, considering the presence of a jewel within doors. It +must have lasted fifteen minutes, and even that would have been +but the beginning, in spite of repeated and continuous pulling of +the bell-handle, had we not determined to enter through the +reception-room window.”</p> +<p>“Did you try the basement door?” queried Bessie, +with a smile, for it pleased her to hear that the jewel was not +quite flawless.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Thaddeus. “We rang four +times at the basement, and I should say seven times at the front +door, and then we took to the window. Bradley’s is +one of those narrow English-basement houses with a small yard in +front, so that the reception-room window is easy to reach by +climbing over the vault leading to the basement door, which is +more or less of a cellar entrance. Fortunately the window +was unlocked. I say fortunately, because it enabled us to +get into the house, though if I were sitting on a jury I think I +should base an indictment—one of criminal +negligence—of the Jewel on the fact that it was +unlocked. It was just the hour, you know, when policemen +yawn and sneak-thieves prowl.”</p> +<p>“How careless!” vouchsafed Bessie.</p> +<p>“Very,” said Thaddeus. “But this time +it worked for the good of all concerned, although my personal +appearance doesn’t give any indication that I gained +anything by it. In fact, it would have been better for me +if the house had been hermetically sealed.”</p> +<p>“Don’t dally so much, Thaddeus,” put in +Bessie. “I’m anxious to hear what +happened.”</p> +<p>“Well, of course Bradley was very much concerned,” +continued Thaddeus. “It was bad enough not to be able +to attract the maid’s attention by ringing, but when he +noticed that the house was as dark as pitch, and that despite the +clanging of the bell, which could be heard all over the +neighborhood, even his wife didn’t come to the door, he was +worried; and he was more worried than ever when he got +inside. We lit the gas in the hall, and walked back into +the dining-room, where we also lighted up, and such confusion as +was there you never saw! The table-cloth was in a heap on +the floor; Bradley’s candelabra, of which he was always so +proud, were bent and twisted out of shape under the table; +glasses broken beyond redemption were strewn round about; and a +mixture of pepper, salt, and sugar was over +everything.”</p> +<p>“‘I believe there have been thieves here,’ +said Bradley, his face turning white. And then he went to +the foot of the stairs and called up to his wife, but there no +answer.</p> +<p>“Then he started on a dead run up the stair. Above +all was in confusion, as in the dining-room. Vases were +broken, pictures hung awry on the walls; but nowhere was Mrs. +Bradley or one of the Bradley children to be seen.</p> +<p>“Then we began a systematic search of the house. +Everywhere everything was upside-down, and finally we came to a +door on the third story back, leading into the children’s +play-room, and as we turned the knob and tried to open it we +heard Mrs. Bradley’s voice from within.</p> +<p>“‘Who’s there?’ she said, her voice +all of a tremble.</p> +<p>“‘It is I!’ returned Bradley. +‘Open the door. What is the meaning of all +this?’</p> +<p>“‘Oh, I’m so glad you have come!’ +returned Mrs. Bradley, with a sob, and then we heard sounds as of +the moving of heavy furniture. Mrs. Bradley, for some as +yet unexplained reason, seemed to have barricaded herself in.</p> +<p>“Finally the door was opened, and Mrs. Bradley buried +her face on her husband’s shoulder and sobbed +hysterically.</p> +<p>“‘What on earth is the matter?’ asked +Bradley, as his children followed their mother’s lead, +except that they buried their faces in his coat-tail +pockets. ‘What has happened?’</p> +<p>“‘Mary!’ gasped Mrs. Bradley.”</p> +<p>“The jewel?” asked Bessie.</p> +<p>“The same,” returned Thaddeus, with a smile. +“She was the jewel, alas! now deprived of her former +glorious setting.</p> +<p>“‘What’s the matter with Mary?’ asked +Bradley.</p> +<p>“‘She’s been behaving outrageously. I +found her this morning,’ said Mrs. Bradley, +‘rummaging through my escritoire, throwing things all over +the floor; and when I remonstrated she said she was looking for a +sheet of paper on which to write a letter. I told her she +should have asked me for it, and she replied impertinently that +she never asked favors of anybody. I told her to leave the +room, and she declined to do it, picking up a sofa-pillow and +throwing it at me. I was so overcome I nearly +fainted.’”</p> +<p>“I should think she would have been overcome! Such +impudence!” said Bessie.</p> +<p>“Humph!” said Thaddeus. “That +isn’t a marker to what followed. Why, according to +Mrs. Bradley’s story, that escaped Koh-i-noor called her +all sorts of horrible names, threw an empty ink-pot at a +photograph of Bradley himself, that stood on the mantel, and +then, grabbing up a whisk-broom, literally swept everything else +there was on the mantel off to the floor with it. This +done, she began to overturn chairs with an ardor born of temper, +apparently; and, finally, Mrs. Bradley got so frightened that she +ran from the room, and the jewel started in pursuit. +Straight to the nursery ran the lady of the house—for there +was where the children were, playing house, no doubt, with little +idea that jewels sometimes deteriorated. Once in the +nursery, Mrs. Bradley slammed the door to, locked it, and then, +still fearful, rolled before it the bureau and the +children’s cribs. After that the actions of the jewel +could only be surmised. The door was pounded and the +atmosphere of the hall was rent with violent harangues; then a +hurried step was heard as the jewel presumably sailed +below-stairs; then crashings were heard—crashings which +might have indicated the smashing of windows, of picture-glass, +of mirrors, chairs, and other household appurtenances, after +which, Mrs. Bradley observed, all became still.”</p> +<p>“Mercy! what a trial!” said Bessie.</p> +<p>“And was she locked up in the nursery all +day?”</p> +<p>“From twelve until we rescued her at a little after +six,” said Thaddeus. “Then Bradley and I +started out to find the jewel, if possible, and I regret to say +that it was possible. We found her asleep on the kitchen +table, and Bradley hadn’t any more sense than to try and +wake her up. He succeeded too well. For the next ten +minutes she was the most wide-awake woman you ever saw, and she +kept us wide awake too. The minute she opened her eyes and +saw us standing before her, she sprang to her feet and made a +rush at Bradley, for which he was totally unprepared, the +consequence of which was that in an instant he found himself +sitting in a very undignified manner, for the head of the house, +on the kitchen floor, trying to collect his somewhat scattered +faculties.</p> +<p>“When she had persuaded Bradley to take a seat, she +turned to shower her attentions on me. I jumped to one +side, but she managed to grab hold of my vest, and hence its +buttonless condition. By this time Bradley was on his feet +again, and, having had the temerity to face his jewel the second +time, he again came off second best, losing one of the +button-holes of his collar in the mêlée. I +rushed in from behind, and flirtatiously, perhaps, tried to grab +hold of her hands, coming off the field minus a necktie, but plus +that picturesque scratch you see on my nose. Stopping a +moment to count up my profit and loss, I let Bradley make the +next assault, which resulted in a drawn battle, Bradley losing +his watch and his temper, the jewel losing her breath and her +balance. So it went on for probably three or four minutes +longer, though we certainly acquired several years of experience +in those short minutes, until finally we managed to conquer +her. This done, we locked her up in a closet.”</p> +<p>“Had she been at the cooking-sherry?” asked +Bessie.</p> +<p>“We thought so at first, and Bradley sent for a +policeman,” said Thaddeus “but when he came we found +the poor creature too exhausted to be moved, and in a very short +while Mrs. Bradley decided that it was a case for a doctor and +not for a police-justice. So the doctor was summoned, and +we waited, dinnerless, in the dining-room for his verdict, and +finally it came. <i>Bradley’s jewel was +insane</i>!”</p> +<p>“Insane!” echoed Bessie.</p> +<p>“Mad as a hatter,” replied Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“Well, I declare!” said Bessie, +thoughtfully. “But, Thaddeus, do you know I am not +surprised.”</p> +<p>“Why, my dear?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Because, Teddy, she was too perfect to be in her right +mind.”</p> +<p>And Thaddeus, after thinking it all over, was inclined to +believe that Bessie was in the right.</p> +<p>“Yes, Bess, she was perfect—perfect in the way she +did her work, perfect in the way she smashed things, and nowhere +did she more successfully show the thoroughness with which she +did everything than when it came to removing the buttons from my +vest. Isn’t it too bad that the only perfect servant +that ever lived should turn out to be a hopeless maniac? +But I must hurry off, or I’ll miss my train.”</p> +<p>“You are not going down to town to-day?” asked +Bessie.</p> +<p>“To-day, above all other days, am I going down,” +returned Thaddeus. “I am enough of a barbarian to be +unwilling to lose the chance of seeing Bradley, and asking him +how he and his jewel get along.”</p> +<p>“Thaddeus!”</p> +<p>“Why not, my dear?”</p> +<p>“It would be too mean for anything.”</p> +<p>“Well, perhaps you are right. I guess I +won’t. But he has rubbed it into me so much about our +domestics that I hate to lose the chance to hit back.”</p> +<p>“Has he?” said Bessie, her face flushing +indignantly, and, it may be added, becomingly. “In +that case, perhaps, you might—ha! ha!—perhaps you +might telegraph and ask him.”</p> +<p>And Thaddeus did so. As yet he has received no +reply.</p> +<h2><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +71</span>UNEXPECTED POMP AT THE PERKINS’S</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">My</span> dear,” said +Thaddeus, one night, as he and Mrs. Perkins entered the library +after dinner, “that was a very good dinner to-night. +Don’t you think so?”</p> +<p>“All except the salmon,” said Bessie, with a +smile.</p> +<p>“Salmon?” echoed Thaddeus. +“Salmon? I did not see any salmon.”</p> +<p>“No,” said Bessie, “that was just the +trouble. It didn’t come up, although it was in the +house before dinner, I’m certain. I saw it +arrive.”</p> +<p>“Ellen couldn’t have known you intended it for +dinner,” said Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“Yes, she knew it was for dinner,” returned +Bessie, “but she made a mistake as to whose dinner it was +for. She supposed it was bought for the kitchen-table, and +when I went down-stairs to inquire about it a few minutes ago it +was fulfilling its assumed mission nobly. There +wasn’t much left but the tail and one fin.”</p> +<p>“Well!” ejaculated Thaddeus, “I call that a +pretty cool proceeding. Did you give her a talking +to?”</p> +<p>“No,” Bessie replied, shortly; “I despise a +domestic fuss, so I pretended I’d gone down to talk about +breakfast. We’ll have breakfast an hour or two +earlier to-morrow, dear.”</p> +<p>“What’s that for?” queried Thaddeus, his +eyes open wide with astonishment. “You are not going +shopping, are you?”</p> +<p>“No, Teddy, I’m not; but when I got down-stairs +and realized that Ellen had made the natural mistake of supposing +the fish was for the down-stairs dinner, this being Friday, I had +to think of something to say, and nothing would come except that +we wanted breakfast at seven instead of at eight. It +doesn’t do to have servants suspect you of spying upon +them, nor is it wise ever to appear flustered—so mamma +says—in their presence. I avoided both by making +Ellen believe I’d come down to order an early +breakfast.”</p> +<p>“You are a great Bessie,” said Thaddeus, with a +laugh. “I admire you more than ever, my dear, and to +prove it I’d get up to breakfast if you’d ordered it +at 1 <span class="GutSmall">A.M.</span>”</p> +<p>“You’d be more likely to stay up to it,” +said Bessie, “and then go to bed after it.”</p> +<p>“There’s your Napoleonic mind again,” said +Thaddeus. “I should never have thought of that way +out of it. But, Bess,” he continued, “when I +was praising to-night’s dinner I had a special object in +view. I think Ellen cooks well enough now to warrant us in +giving a dinner, don’t you?”</p> +<p>“Well, it all depends on what we have for dinner,” +said Bessie. “Ellen’s biscuits are atrocious, I +think, and you know how lumpy the oatmeal always is.”</p> +<p>“Suppose we try giving a dinner with the oatmeal and +biscuit courses left out?” suggested Thaddeus, with a +grin.</p> +<p>Bessie’s eyes twinkled. “You make very +bright after-dinner speeches, Teddy,” she said. +“I don’t see why we can’t have a dinner with +nothing but pretty china, your sparkling conversation, and a few +flowers strewn about. It would be particularly satisfactory +to me.”</p> +<p>“They’re not all angels like you, my dear,” +Thaddeus returned. “There’s Bradley, for +instance. He’d die of starvation before we got to the +second course in a dinner of that kind, and if there is any one +thing that can cast a gloom over a dinner, it is to have one of +the guests die of starvation right in the middle of +it.”</p> +<p>“Mr. Bradley would never do so ungentlemanly a +thing,” said Bessie, laughing heartily. “He is +too considerate a man for that; he’d starve in silence and +without ostentation.”</p> +<p>“Why this sudden access of confidence in Bradley?” +queried Thaddeus. “I thought you didn’t like +him?”</p> +<p>“Neither I did, until that Sunday he spent with +us,” Bessie answered. “I’ve admired him +intensely ever since. Don’t you remember, we had +lemon pie for dinner—one I made myself?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I remember,” said Thaddeus; “but I +fail to see the connection between lemon pie and Bradley. +Bradley is not sour or crusty.”</p> +<p>“You wouldn’t have failed to see if you’d +watched Mr. Bradley at dinner,” retorted Bessie. +“He ate two pieces of it.”</p> +<p>“And just because a man eats two pieces of lemon pie +prepared by your own fair hands you whirl about, and, from +utterly disliking him, call him, upon the whole, one of the most +admirable products of the human race?” said Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“Not at all,” Bessie replied, with a broad smile; +“but I did admire the spirit and politeness of the +man. On our way home from church in the morning we were +talking about the good times children have on their little +picnics, and Mr. Bradley said he never enjoyed a picnic in his +life, because every one he had ever gone to was ruined by the +baleful influence of lemon pie.”</p> +<p>Thaddeus laughed. “Then he didn’t like lemon +pie?” he asked.</p> +<p>“No, he hated it,” said Bessie, joining in the +laugh. “He added that the original receipt for it +came out of Pandora’s box.”</p> +<p>“Poor Bradley!” cried Thaddeus, throwing his head +back in a paroxysm of mirth. “Hated +pie—declared his feelings—and then to be confronted +by it at dinner.”</p> +<p>“He behaved nobly,” said Bessie. “Ate +his first piece like a man, and then called for a second, like a +hero, when you remarked that it was of my make.”</p> +<p>“You ought to have told him it wasn’t necessary, +Bess,” said Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“I felt that way myself at first,” Bessie +explained; “but then I thought I wouldn’t let him +know I remembered what he had said.”</p> +<p>“I fancy that was better,” said Thaddeus. +“But about that dinner. What do you say to our +inviting the Bradleys, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, the Robinsons, and +the Twinings?”</p> +<p>“How many does that make? Eight besides +ourselves?” asked Bessie, counting upon her fingers.</p> +<p>“Yes—ten altogether,” said Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“It can’t be done, dear,” said Bessie. +“We have only eight fruit plates.”</p> +<p>“Can’t you and I go without fruit?” Thaddeus +asked.</p> +<p>“Not very well,” laughed Bessie. “It +would never do.”</p> +<p>“They might think the fruit was poisoned if we did, +eh?” suggested Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“Besides, Mary never could serve dinner for ten; eight +is her number. Last time we had ten people, don’t you +remember, she dropped a tray full of dishes, and poured the +claret into the champagne glasses?”</p> +<p>“Oh, yes, so she did,” said Thaddeus. +“That’s how we came to have only eight fruit +plates. I remember. I don’t think it was the +number of people at the table, though. It was Twining +caused the trouble, he had just made the pleasant remark that he +wouldn’t have an Irish servant in his house, when Mary +fired the salute.”</p> +<p>“Then that settles it,” said Bessie. +“We’ll cut the Twinings out, and ask the +others. I don’t care much for Mrs. Twining, anyhow; +she’s nothing but clothes and fidgets.”</p> +<p>“And Twining doesn’t do much but ask you what you +think of certain things, and then tell you you are all wrong when +he finds out,” said Thaddeus. “Yes, it’s +just as well to cut them off this time. We’ll make it +for eight, and have it a week from Thursday night.”</p> +<p>“That’s Mary’s night off,” said +Bessie.</p> +<p>“Then how about having it Friday?”</p> +<p>“That’s Maggie’s night off, and there +won’t be anybody to mind the baby.”</p> +<p>“Humph!” said Thaddeus. “I wish there +were a baby safe-deposit company somewhere. Can’t +your mother come over and look after him?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Bessie, “she can’t. +The child always develops something every time mother +comes. Not, of course, that I believe she gives it to him, +but she looks for things, don’t you know.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Thaddeus, “I know. Then +make it Wednesday. That’s my busy day down-town, and +I shan’t be able to get home much before half-past six, but +if dinner is at seven, there will be time enough for me to +dress.”</p> +<p>“Very well,” said Bessie. “I will +write the invitations to-morrow, and, meanwhile, you and I can +get up the menu.”</p> +<p>“Oysters to begin with, of course,” said +Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“I suppose so,” said Bessie, “though, you +remember, the last time we had oysters you had to open them, +because the man from the market didn’t get here until +half-past seven.”</p> +<p>“And Ellen had never opened any except with a +tack-hammer,” said Thaddeus. “Yes, I +remember. But lightning never strikes twice in the same +place. Put down the oysters. Then we’ll have +some kind of a purée—celery purée, +eh?”</p> +<p>“That will be very good if Ellen can be induced to keep +it thick.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps we’d better tell her we want a celery +consommé,” suggested Thaddeus. “Then it +will be sure to be as thick as a dictionary.”</p> +<p>“I guess it will be all right,” said Bessie. +“What kind of fish?”</p> +<p>“Bradley likes salmon; Robinson likes sole; Phillips +likes whitebait, and so do I.”</p> +<p>“We’ll have whitebait,” said Bessie, +simply. “Then a saddle of mutton?”</p> +<p>“Yes, and an entrée of some kind, and next +individual ruddy ducks.”</p> +<p>“No Roman punch?”</p> +<p>“We can get along without that, I think,” said +Thaddeus. “We want to keep this dinner down to +Mary’s comprehension, and I’m afraid she +wouldn’t know what to make of an ice in the middle of the +dinner. The chances are she’d want to serve it +hot.”</p> +<p>“All right, Teddy. What next?”</p> +<p>“I would suggest a lemon pie for Bradley,” smiled +Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“What do you say to Ellen’s making one of her +tipsy-cakes?” suggested Bessie.</p> +<p>“Just the thing,” said Thaddeus, smacking his lips +with enthusiasm. “I could eat a million of +’em. Then we can finish up with coffee and +fruit.”</p> +<p>So it was settled. The invitations were sent out, and +Bessie devoted her energies for the next ten days to making +ready.</p> +<p>Ellen’s culinary powers were tested at every meal. +For dinner one night she was requested to prepare the +purée, which turned out to be eminently +satisfactory. Thaddeus gave her a few practical lessons in +the art of opening oysters, an art of which he had become a +master in his college days—in fact, if his own words were +to be believed, it was the sole accomplishment he had there +acquired which gave any significance whatever to his degree of B. +A.—so that in case the “fish gentleman” failed +to appear in time nothing disastrous might result. Other +things on the menu were also ordered at various times, and all +went so well that when Thaddeus left home on the chosen Wednesday +morning, it was with a serene sense of good times ahead. +The invited guests had accepted, and everything was +promising.</p> +<p>As Thaddeus had said, Wednesday was his busy day, and never +had it been busier than upon this occasion. Everything +moved smoothly, but there was a great deal to move, and finally, +when all was done, and Thaddeus rose to leave his desk, it was +nearly six o’clock, and quite impossible for him to reach +home before seven. “I shall be late,” he said, +as he hurried off; and he was right. He arrived at home +coincidently with his guests, rushed to his room, and +dressed. But one glimpse had he of Bessie, and that was as +they passed on the stairs, she hurrying down to receive her +guests, he hurrying up to change his clothes.</p> +<p>“Oh, Thad!” was all she said, but to Thaddeus it +was disconcerting.</p> +<p>“What is the matter, dear?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Nothing; I’ll tell you later. Hurry,” +she gasped, “or the dinner will be spoiled.”</p> +<p>Thaddeus hurried as he never hurried before, and in fifteen +minutes walked, immaculate as to attire, into the drawing-room, +where Bessie, her color heightened to an unusual degree, and her +usually bright eyes fairly flaming with an unwonted brilliance, +was entertaining the Bradleys, the Phillipses, and the +Robinsons.</p> +<p>“Didn’t expect me, did you?” said Thaddeus, +as he entered the room.</p> +<p>“No,” said Bradley, dryly. “This is an +unexpected pleasure. I didn’t even know you were a +friend of the family.”</p> +<p>“Well, I am,” said Thaddeus. “One of +the oldest friends I’ve got, in fact, which is my sole +excuse for keeping you waiting. Old friends are +privileged—eh, Mrs. Robinson?”</p> +<p>“Dinner is served,” came a deep bass voice from +the middle of the doorway.</p> +<p>Thaddeus jumped as if he had seen a ghost, and, turning to see +what could have caused the strange metamorphosis in the soprano +tremolo of Mary’s voice, was astonished to observe in the +parting of the portières not the more or less portly Mary, +but a huge, burly, English-looking man, bowing in a most +effective and graceful fashion to Mrs. Bradley, and then +straightening himself up into a pose as rigid and uncompromising +as that of a marble statue.</p> +<p>“What on earth—” began Thaddeus, with a +startled look of inquiry at Bessie. But she only shook her +head, and put her finger to her lips, enjoining silence, which +Thaddeus, fortunately, had the good sense to understand, even if +his mind was not equal to the fathoming of that other mystery, +the pompous and totally unexpected butler.</p> +<p>But if Thaddeus was surprised to see the butler, he was amazed +at the dinner which the butler served. Surely, he thought, +if Ellen can prepare a dinner like this, she ought to be above +taking sixteen dollars and a home a month. It was simply a +regal repast. The oysters were delicious, and the +purée was superior to anything Thaddeus had ever eaten in +the line of soups in his life—only it was lobster +purée, and ten times better than Ellen’s general run +of celery purée. He winked his eye to denote his +extreme satisfaction to Bessie when he thought no one was +looking, but was overwhelmed with mortification when he observed +that the wink had been seen by the overpowering butler, who +looked sternly at him, as much as to say, “’Ow wery +wulgar!”</p> +<p>“I must congratulate your cook upon her lobster +purée, Mrs. Perkins,” said Mr. Phillips. +“It is delicious.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” put in Thaddeus. “But you ought +to taste her celery purée. She is undoubtedly great +on purées.”</p> +<p>Bessie coughed slightly and shook her head at Thaddeus, and +Thaddeus thought he detected the germ of a smile upon the cold +face of the butler. He was not sure about it, but it +curdled his blood just a little, because that ghost of a smile +seemed to have just a tinge of a sneer in it.</p> +<p>“This isn’t the same cook you had last time, is +it?” asked Bradley.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Thaddeus. “Same one, +though it was my wife who made that lem—”</p> +<p>“Thaddeus,” interrupted Bessie, “Mrs. +Robinson tells me that she and Mr. Robinson are going down to New +York to the theatre on Friday night. Can’t we all +go?”</p> +<p>“Certainly,” said Thaddeus. “I’m +in on any little diversion of that sort. Why, what’s +this?—er—why, yes, of course. Phillips, +you’ll go; and you, too, eh, Bradley?”</p> +<p>Thaddeus was evidently much upset again; for, instead of the +whitebait he and Bessie had decided upon for their fish course, +the butler had entered, bearing in a toplofty fashion a huge +silver platter, upon which lay a superb salmon, beautifully +cooked and garnished. This he was now holding before +Thaddeus, and stood awaiting his nod of approval before serving +it. Inasmuch as Thaddeus not only expected whitebait, but +had also never before seen the silver platter, it is hardly +surprising that he should sit staring at the fish in a puzzled +sort of way. He recovered shortly, however, gave the nod +the butler was waiting for, and the dinner proceeded. And +what a dinner it was! Each new course in turn amazed +Thaddeus far more than the course that had preceded it; and now, +when the butler, whom Thaddeus had got more or less used to, came +in bearing a bottle of wine, followed by another stolid, +well-dressed person, who might have been his twin-brother and who +was in reality no more than assistant to the other, Thaddeus +began to fear that the wine he had partaken of had brought about +that duplication of sight which is said to be one of the symptoms +of over-indulgence. Either that or he was dreaming, he +thought; and the alternative was not a pleasant one, for Thaddeus +did not over-indulge, and as a person of intellect he did not +deem it the proper thing to dream at the dinner-table, since the +first requisite of dreaming is falling asleep. This +Thaddeus never did in polite society.</p> +<p>To say that he could scarcely contain himself for curiosity to +know what had occurred to bring about this singular condition of +affairs is to put it with a mildness which justice to Thaddeus +compels me to term criminal. Yet, to his credit be it said, +that through the whole of the repast, which lasted for two hours, +he kept silent, and but for a slight nervousness of manner no one +would have suspected that he was not as he had always been. +Indeed, to none of the party, not even excepting his wife, did +Thaddeus appear to be anything but what he should be. But +when, finally, the ladies had withdrawn and the men remained over +the coffee and cigars, he was compelled to undergo a still +severer test upon his loyalty to Bessie, whose signal to him to +accept all and say nothing he was so nobly obeying.</p> +<p>Bradley began it. “I didn’t know you’d +changed from women to men servants, Perkins?”</p> +<p>“<i>Yes</i>,” said Thaddeus “we’ve +changed.”</p> +<p>“Rather good change, don’t you think?”</p> +<p>“Splendid,” said Phillips. “That +fellow served the dinner like a prince.”</p> +<p>“I don’t believe he’s any more than a duke, +though,” said Bradley. “His manner was quite +ducal—in fact, too ducal, if Perkins will let me +criticise. He made me feel like a poor, miserable, +red-blooded son of the people. I wanted an olive, and, by +Jove, I didn’t dare ask for it.”</p> +<p>“That wasn’t his fault,” said Robinson, with +a laugh. “You forget that you live in a country where +red blood is as good as blue. Where did you get him, +Thaddeus?”</p> +<p>Thaddeus looked like a rat in a corner with a row of cats to +the fore.</p> +<p>“Oh!—we—er—we got him from—dear +me! I never can remember. Mrs. Perkins can tell you, +though,” he stammered. “She looks after the +menagerie.”</p> +<p>“What’s his name?” asked Phillips.</p> +<p>Thaddeus’s mind was a blank. He could not for the +life of him think what name a butler would be likely to have, but +in a moment he summoned up nerve enough to speak.</p> +<p>“Grimmins,” he said, desperately.</p> +<p>“Sounds like a Dickens’ character,” said +Robinson. “Does he cost you very much, +Thad?”</p> +<p>“Oh no—not so very much,” said Thaddeus, +whose case was now so desperate that he resolved to put a stop to +it all. Unfortunately, his method of doing so was not by +telling the truth, but by a flight of fancy in which he felt he +owed it to Bessie to indulge.</p> +<p>“No—he doesn’t cost much,” he +repeated, boldly. “Fact is, he is a man we’ve +known for a great many years. He—er—he used to +be butler in my grandfather’s house in Philadelphia, +and—er—and I was there a great deal of the time as a +boy, and Grimmins and I were great friends. When my +grandfather died Grimmins disappeared, and until last month I +never heard a word of him, and then he wrote to me stating that +he was out of work and poor as a fifty-cent +table-d’hôte dinner, and would like employment at +nominal wages if he could get a home with it. We were just +getting rid of our waitress, and so I offered Grimmins thirty a +month, board, lodging, and clothes. He came on; I gave him +one of my old dress-suits, set him to work, and there you +are.”</p> +<p>“I thought you said a minute ago Mrs. Perkins got +him?” said Bradley, who is one of those disagreeable men +with a memory.</p> +<p>“I thought you were talking about the cook,” said +Thaddeus, uneasily. “Weren’t you talking about +the cook?”</p> +<p>“No; but we ought to have been,” said Phillips, +with enthusiasm. “She’s the queen of +cooks. What do you pay her?”</p> +<p>“Sixteen,” said Thaddeus, glad to get back on the +solid ground of truth once more.</p> +<p>“What?” cried Phillips. “Sixteen, and +can cook like that? Take me down and introduce me, will +you, Perkins? I’d like to offer her seventeen to come +and cook for me.”</p> +<p>“Let’s join the ladies,” said Thaddeus, +abruptly. “There’s no use of our wasting our +sweetness upon each other.”</p> +<p>If the head of the house had expected to be relieved from his +unfortunate embarrassments by joining the ladies, he was doomed +to bitter disappointment, for the conversation abandoned at the +table was resumed in the drawing-room. The dinner had been +too much of a success to be forgotten readily.</p> +<p>Thaddeus’s troubles were set going again when he +overheard Phillips saying to Bessie, “Thaddeus has been +telling us the remarkable story of Grimmins.”</p> +<p>Nor were his woes lightened any when he caught Bessie’s +reply: “Indeed? What story is that?”</p> +<p>“Why, the story of the butler—Grimmins, you +know. How you came to get him, and all that,” said +Phillips. “Really, you are to be +congratulated.”</p> +<p>“I am glad to know you feel that way,” said +Bessie, simply, with a glance at Thaddeus which was full of +wonderment.</p> +<p>“He is a treasure,” said Bradley; “but your +cook is a whole chestful of treasures. And how fortunate +you and Thaddeus are! The idea of there being anywhere in +the world a person of such ability in her vocation, and so poor a +notion of her worth!”</p> +<p>Thaddeus breathed again, now that the cook was under +discussion. He knew all about her.</p> +<p>“Yes, indeed,” said Bessie. “He did +well.”</p> +<p>“I mean the cook,” returned Bradley. +“You mean she did well, don’t you?”</p> +<p>What Bessie would have answered, or what Thaddeus would have +done next if the conversation had been continued, can be a matter +of unprofitable speculation only, for at this point a wail from +above-stairs showed that Master Perkins had awakened, and the +ladies, considerate of Bessie’s maternal feelings, promptly +rose to take their leave, and in ten minutes she and Thaddeus +were alone.</p> +<p>“What on earth is the story of Grimmins, +Thaddeus?” she asked, as the door closed upon the departing +guests.</p> +<p>Thaddeus threw himself wearily down upon the sofa and +explained. He told her all he had said about the butler and +the cook.</p> +<p>“That’s the story of Grimmins,” he said, +when he had finished.</p> +<p>“Oh, dear me, dear me!” cried Bessie, “you +told the men that, and I—I, Thaddeus, told the women the +truth. Why, it’s—it’s awful. +You’ll never hear the end of it.”</p> +<p>“Well, now that they know the truth, Bess,” +Thaddeus said, “suppose you let me into the secret. +What on earth is the meaning of all this—two butlers, +silver platters, dinner fit for the gods, and all?”</p> +<p>“It’s all because of the tipsy-cake,” said +Bessie.</p> +<p>“The what?” asked Thaddeus, sitting up and gazing +at his wife as if he questioned her sanity.</p> +<p>“The tipsy-cake,” she repeated. “I +gave Ellen the bottle of brandy you gave me for the tipsy-cake, +and—and she drank half of it.”</p> +<p>“And the other half?”</p> +<p>“Mary drank that. They got word this morning that +their brother was very ill, and it upset them so I don’t +believe they knew what they were doing; but at one o’clock, +when I went down to lunch, there was no lunch ready, and when I +descended into the kitchen to find out why, I found that the fire +had gone out, and both girls were—both girls were asleep on +the cellar floor. They’re there yet—locked in; +and all through dinner I was afraid they might come to, +and—make a rumpus.”</p> +<p>“And the dinner?” said Thaddeus, a light breaking +through into his troubled mind.</p> +<p>“I telegraphed to New York to Partinelli at once, +telling him to serve a dinner for eight here to-night, supplying +service, cook, dinner, and everything, and at four o’clock +these men arrived and took possession. It was the only +thing I could do, Thad, wasn’t it?”</p> +<p>“It was, Bess,” said Thaddeus, gravely. +“It was great; but—by Jove, I wish I’d known, +because—Did you really tell the ladies the truth about +it?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I did,” said Bessie. “They were +so full of praises for everything that I didn’t think it +was fair for me to take all the credit of it, so I told them the +whole thing.”</p> +<p>“That was right, too,” said Thaddeus; “but +those fellows will never let me hear the end of that infernal +Grimmins story. I almost wish we—”</p> +<p>“You wish what, Teddy dear?”</p> +<p>“I almost wish we had not attempted the tipsy-cake, and +had stuck to my original suggestion,” said Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“What was that?” Bessie asked.</p> +<p>“To have lemon pie for dessert, for Bradley’s +sake,” answered Thaddeus, as he locked the front door and +turned off the gas.</p> +<h2><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 101</span>AN +OBJECT-LESSON</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was early in the autumn. +Mr. and Mrs. Perkins, with their two hopefuls, had returned from +a month of rest at the mountains, and the question of school for +Thaddeus junior came up.</p> +<p>“He is nearly six years old,” said Bessie, +“and I think he is quite intelligent enough to go to +school, don’t you?”</p> +<p>“Well, if you want my honest opinion,” Thaddeus +answered, “I think he’s intelligent enough to go +without school for another year at least. I don’t +want a hot-house boy, and I have always been opposed to forcing +these little minds that we are called upon by circumstances to +direct. It seems to me that the thing for us to do is to +hold them back, if anything. If Teddy goes to school now, +he’ll be ready for college when he is twelve. +He’ll be graduated at sixteen, and at twenty he’ll be +practising law. At twenty-five he’ll be leader of the +bar; and then—what will there be left for him to achieve at +fifty? Absolutely nothing.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Perkins laughed. “You have great hopes for +Teddy, haven’t you?”</p> +<p>“Certainly I have,” Thaddeus replied; “and +why shouldn’t I? Doesn’t he combine all my good +qualities plus yours? How can he be anything else than +great?”</p> +<p>“I am afraid there’s a touch of vanity in +you,” said Mrs. Perkins, with a smile. “That +remark certainly indicates it.”</p> +<p>“No—it’s not vanity in me,” said +Thaddeus. “It’s confidence in you. +You’ve assured me so often of my perfection that I am +beginning to believe in it; and as for your perfection, +I’ve always believed in it. Hence, when I see Teddy +combining your perfect qualities with my own, I regard him as a +supernaturally promising person—that is, I do until he +begins to show the influence of contact with the hired man, and +uses language which he never got from you or from me.”</p> +<p>“Granting that he is great at twenty-five,” said +Mrs. Perkins, after a few moments’ reflection, “is +that such a horrible thing?”</p> +<p>“It isn’t for the parents of the successful youth, +but for the successful youth himself it’s something +awful,” returned Thaddeus, with a convincing shake of the +head. “If no one ever lived beyond the age of +thirty-five it wouldn’t be so bad, but think of living to +be even so young as sixty, with a big reputation to sustain +through more than half of that period! I wouldn’t +want to have to sustain a big name for twenty-five years. +Success entails conspicuousness, and conspicuousness makes error +almost a crime. Put your mind on it for a moment. +Think of Teddy here. How nervous it would make him in +everything he undertook to feel that the eyes of the world were +upon him. And take into consideration that other +peculiarity of human nature which leads us all, you and me as +well as every one else, to believe that the man who does not +progress is going backward, that there is no such thing as +standing still; then think of a man illustrious enough for +seventy at twenty-five—at the limit of success, with all +those years before him, and no progress possible! No, my +dear. Don’t let’s talk of school for Teddy +yet.”</p> +<p>“I am sure I don’t want to force him,” said +Mrs. Perkins, “but it sometimes seems to me that he needs +lessons in discipline. I can’t be following around +after him all the time, and it seems to me some days that I do +nothing but find fault with him. I don’t want him to +think I’m a stern mother; and when he tells me, as he did +yesterday, that he wishes I’d take a vacation for a month, +I can’t blame him.”</p> +<p>“Did he tell you that?” asked Thaddeus, with a +chuckle.</p> +<p>“Yes, he did,” replied Mrs. Perkins. +“I’d kept him in a chair for an hour because he would +tease Tommy, and when finally I let him go I told him that he was +wearing me out with his naughtiness. About an hour later he +came back and said, ‘You have an awful hard time +bringin’ me up, don’t you?’ I said yes, +and added that he might spare me the necessity of scolding him so +often, to which he replied that he’d try, but thought it +would be better if I’d take a vacation for a month. +He hadn’t much hope for his own improvement.”</p> +<p>Thaddeus shook internally.</p> +<p>“He’s perfectly wild, too, at times,” Mrs. +Perkins continued. “He wants to do such fearful +things. I caught him sliding down the banisters yesterday +head-foremost, and you know how he was at the Mountain House all +summer long. Perfectly irrepressible.”</p> +<p>“That’s very true,” said Thaddeus. +“I was speaking of it to the doctor up there, and asked him +what he thought I’d better do.”</p> +<p>“And what did he say?” asked Mrs. Perkins.</p> +<p>“He stated his firm belief that there was nothing you or +I could do to get him down to a basis, but thought Hagenbeck +might accomplish something.”</p> +<p>“No doubt he thought that,” cried Bessie. +“No doubt everybody thought that, but it wasn’t +entirely Teddy’s fault. If there is anything in the +world that is well calculated to demoralize an active-minded, +able-bodied child, it is hotel life. Teddy was egged on to +all sorts of indiscretions by everybody in the hotel, from the +bell-boys up. If he’d stand on his head on the +cashier’s desk, the cashier would laugh first, and then, to +get rid of him, would suggest that he go into the dining-room and +play with the headwaiter; and when he upset the contents of his +bait-box in Mrs. Harkaway’s lap, she interfered when I +scolded him, and said she liked it. What can you do when +people talk that way?”</p> +<p>“Get him to upset his bait-box in her lap again,” +said Thaddeus. “I think if he had been encouraged to +do that as a regular thing, every morning for a week, she’d +have changed her tune.”</p> +<p>“Well, it all goes to prove one thing,” said Mrs. +Perkins, “and that is, Teddy needs more care than we can +give him personally. We are too lenient. Whenever you +start in to punish him it ends up with a game; when I do it, and +he says something funny, as he always does, I have to +laugh.”</p> +<p>“How about the ounce-of-prevention idea?” +suggested Thaddeus. “We’ve let him go without a +nurse for a year now—why can’t we employ a maid to +look after him—not to boss him, but to keep an eye on +him—to advise him, and, in case he declines to accept the +advice, to communicate with us at once? All he needs is +directed occupation. As he is at present, he directs his +own occupation, with the result that the things he does are of an +impossible sort.”</p> +<p>“That means another servant for me to manage,” +sighed Mrs. Perkins.</p> +<p>“True; but a servant is easier to manage than +Teddy. You can discharge a servant if she becomes +impossible. We’ve got Teddy for keeps,” said +Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“Very well—so be it,” said Mrs. +Perkins. “You are right, I guess, about school. +He ought not to be forced, and I’d be worried about him all +the time he was away, anyhow.”</p> +<p>So it was decided that Teddy should have a nurse, and for a +day or two the subject was dropped. Later on Mrs. Perkins +reopened it.</p> +<p>“I’ve been thinking all day about Teddy’s +nurse, Thaddeus,” she said, one evening after dinner. +“I think it would be nice if we got him a French +nurse. Then he could learn French without any +forcing.”</p> +<p>“Good scheme,” said Thaddeus. “I +approve of that. We might learn a little French from her +ourselves, too.”</p> +<p>“That’s what I thought,” said Bessie and +that point was decided. The new nurse was to be French, and +the happy parents drew beatific visions of the ease with which +they should some day cope with Parisian hotel-keepers and others +in that longed-for period when they should find themselves able, +financially, to visit the French capital.</p> +<p>But—</p> +<p>Ah! Those buts that come into our lives! +Conjunctions they are called! Are they not rather +terminals? Are they not the forerunners of chaos in the +best-laid plans of mankind? If for every “but” +that destroys our plan of action there were ready always some +better-succeeding plan, then might their conjunctive force seem +more potent; as life goes, however, unhappily, they are not +always so provided, and the English “but” takes on +its Gallic significance, which leads the Frenchman to define it +as meaning “the end.”</p> +<p>There was an object-lesson in store for the Perkinses.</p> +<p>On the Sunday following the discussion with which this story +opens, the Perkinses, always hospitable, though distinctly +unsociable so far as the returning of visits went, received a +visit from their friends the Bradleys. Ordinarily a visit +from one’s town friends is no very great undertaking for a +suburban host or hostess, but when the town friends have children +from whom they are inseparable, and those children have nurses +who, whithersoever the children go, go there also, such a visit +takes on proportions the stupendousness of which I, being myself +a suburban entertainer, would prefer not to discuss, fearing lest +some of my friends with families, recalling these words, might +consider my remarks of a personal nature. Let me be content +with saying, therefore, that when the Bradleys, Mr. and Mrs., +plus Master and Miss, plus Harriet, the English nurse, came to +visit the Perkins homestead that Sunday, it was a momentous +occasion for the host and hostess, and, furthermore, like many +another momentous occasion, was far-reaching in its results.</p> +<p>In short, it provided the Perkins family with that +object-lesson to which I have already alluded.</p> +<p>The Bradleys arrived on Sunday night, and as they came late +little Harry Bradley and the still smaller Jennie Bradley were +tired, and hence not at all responsive to the welcomes of the +Perkinses, large or small. They were excessively +reticent. When Mrs. Perkins, kneeling before Master Harry, +asked him the wholly unnecessary question, “Why, is this +Harry?” he refused wholly to reply; nor could the +diminutive Jennie be induced to say anything but +“Yumps” in response to a similar question put to her, +“Yumps” being, it is to be presumed, a juvenilism for +“Yes, ma’am.” Hence it was that the +object-lesson did not begin to develop until breakfast on Sunday +morning. The first step in the lesson was taken at that +important meal, when Master Harry observed, in stentorian yet +sweetly soprano tones:</p> +<p>“Hi wants a glarse o’ milk.”</p> +<p>To which his nurse, standing behind his chair to relieve the +Perkinses’ maid of the necessity of looking after the +Bradley hopefuls, replied:</p> +<p>“’Ush, ’Arry, ’ush! Wite till +yer arsked.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Bradley nodded approval to Harriet, and observed quietly +to Mrs. Perkins that Harriet was such a treasure; she kept the +children so well in subjection.</p> +<p>The incident passed without making any impression upon the +minds of any but Thaddeus junior, who, taking his cue from Harry, +vociferously asserted that he, too, wished a glass of milk, and +in such terms as made the assertion tantamount to an +ultimatum.</p> +<p>Then Miss Jennie seemed to think it was her turn.</p> +<p>“Hi doan’t care fer stike. Hi wants +chickin,” said she. “I’n’t there +goin’ ter be no kikes?”</p> +<p>Mrs. Perkins laughed, though I strongly suspect that Thaddeus +junior would have been sent from the table had he ventured to +express a similar sentiment. Mrs. Bradley blushed; Bradley +looked severe; Perkins had that expression which all parents have +when other people’s children are involved, and which +implies the thought, “If you were mine there’d be +trouble; but since you are not mine, how cunning you +are!” But Harriet, the nurse, met the problem. +She said:</p> +<p>“Popper’s goin’ ter have stike, Jinnie; +m’yby Mr. Perkins’ll give yer lots o’ +gryvy. Hit i’n’t time fer the kikes.”</p> +<p>Perhaps I ought to say to those who have not studied dialect +as “she is spoke” that the word m’yby is the +Seven Dials idiom for maybe, itself more or less an Americanism, +signifying “perhaps,” while “kikes” is a +controvertible term for cakes.</p> +<p>After breakfast, as a matter of course, the senior members of +both families attended divine service, then came dinner, and +after dinner the usual matching of the children began. The +hopefuls of Perkins were matched against the scions of +Bradley. All four were brought down-stairs and into the +parental presence in the library.</p> +<p>“Your Harry is a fine fellow, Mrs. Bradley,” said +Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“Yes, we think Harry is a very nice boy,” returned +Mrs. Bradley, with a fond glance at the youth.</p> +<p>“Wot djer si about me, mar?” asked Harry.</p> +<p>“Nothing, dear,” replied Mrs. Bradley, raising her +eyebrows reprovingly.</p> +<p>“Yes, yer did, too,” retorted Harry. +“Yer said as ’ow hi were a good boy.”</p> +<p>“Well, ’e i’n’t, then,” +interjected Jennie. “’E’s a +bloomin’ mean un. ’E took a knoife an’ +cut open me doll.”</p> +<p>“’Ush, Jinnie, ’ush!” put in the +nurse. “Don’t yer tell tiles on +’Arry. ’E didn’t mean ter ’urt yer +doll. ’Twas a haxident.”</p> +<p>“No, ’twasn’t a haxident,” said +Jennie. “’E done it a-purpice.”</p> +<p>“Well, wot if hi did?” retorted Harry. +“Didn’t yer pull the tile off me +rockin’-’orse?”</p> +<p>“Well, never mind,” said Bradley, seeing how +strained things were getting. “Don’t quarrel +about it now. It’s all done and gone, and I dare say +you were both a little to blame.”</p> +<p>“’Hi war’n’t!” said Harry, and +then the subject was dropped. The children romped in and +out through the library and halls for some time, and the Bradleys +and Perkinses compared notes on various points of interest to +both. After a while they again reverted to the subject of +their children.</p> +<p>“Does Harry go to school?” asked Bessie.</p> +<p>“No, we think he’s too young yet,” returned +Mrs. Bradley. “He learns a little of something every +day from Harriet, who is really a very superior girl. She +is a good servant. She hasn’t been in this country +very long, and is English to the core, as you’ve probably +noticed, not only in her way of comporting herself, but in her +accent.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I’ve observed it,” said Bessie. +“What does she teach him?”</p> +<p>“Oh, she tells him stories that are more or less +instructive, and she reads to him. She’s taught him +one or two pretty little songs—ballads, you +know—too. Harry has a sweet little voice. +Harry, dear, won’t you sing that song about Mrs. Henry +Hawkins for mamma?”</p> +<p>“Don’t warn’ter,” said Harry. +“Hi’m sick o’ that bloomin’ old +song.”</p> +<p>“Seems to me I’ve heard it,” said +Thaddeus. “As I remember it, Harry, it was very +pretty.”</p> +<p>“It is,” said Bradley. “It’s the +one you mean—‘Oh, ’Lizer! dear +’Lizer! Mrs. ’Ennery +’Awkins.’ Harry sings it well, too; but I say, +Thad, you ought to hear the nurse sing it. It’s +great.”</p> +<p>“I should think it might be.”</p> +<p>“She has the accent down fine, you know.”</p> +<p>“Sort of born to it, eh?”</p> +<p>“Yes; you can’t cultivate that accent and get it +just right.”</p> +<p>“I’ll do ‘Dear Old Dutch’ for +yer,” suggested Harry. “Hi likes thet better +’n ‘Mrs. ’Awkins.’”</p> +<p>So Harry deserted “Mrs. ’Awkins” and sang +that other pathetic coster-ballad, “Dear Old Dutch,” +and, to the credit of Harriet, the nurse, it must be said that he +was marvellously well instructed. It could not have been +done better had the small vocalist been the own son of a London +coster-monger instead of the scion of an American family of +refinement.</p> +<p>Thus the day passed. Jennie proved herself quite as +proficient in the dialect of Seven Dials as was Harry, or even +Harriet, and when she consented to stand on a chair and recite a +few nursery rhymes, there was not an unnoticed “h” +that she did not, sooner or later, pick up and attach to some +other word to which it was not related, as she went along.</p> +<p>In short, as far as their speech was concerned, thanks to +association with Harriet, Jennie and Harry were as perfect little +cockneys as ever ignored an aspirate.</p> +<p>The visit of the Bradleys, like all other things, came to an +end, and Bessie, Thaddeus, and the children were once more left +to themselves. Teddy junior, it was observed, after his day +with Harry, developed a slight tendency to misplace the letter +“h” in his conversation, but it was soon corrected, +and things ran smoothly as of yore. Only—the Only +being the natural sequence of the But referred to some time +since—Mr. and Mrs. Perkins changed their minds about the +French nurse, and it came about in this way:</p> +<p>“Thaddeus,” said Bessie, after the Bradleys had +departed, “what is the tile of a +rockin’-’orse?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know. Why?” asked +Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“Why, don’t you remember,” she said, +“young Harry Bradley accused Jennie of pulling out the tile +of his rockin’-’orse?”</p> +<p>“Oh yes! Ha, ha!” laughed Thaddeus. +“So she did. I know now. Tile is cockney for +tail.”</p> +<p>“Did you notice the accent those children +had?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“All got from the nurse, too?”</p> +<p>“True.”</p> +<p>“Ah, Teddy, what do you think of our getting a French +maid, after all? Don’t you think that we’d run +a great risk?”</p> +<p>“Of what?”</p> +<p>“Of having Ted speak—er—cockney +French.”</p> +<p>“H’m—yes. Very likely,” said +Thaddeus. “I’d thought of that myself, and, I +guess, perhaps we’d better stick to Irish.”</p> +<p>“So do I. We can correct any tendency to a brogue, +don’t you think?”</p> +<p>“Certainly,” said Thaddeus. “Or, if we +couldn’t, it wouldn’t be fatal to the boy’s +prospects. It might even help him if he—”</p> +<p>“Help him? If what?”</p> +<p>“If he ever went into polities,” said Perkins.</p> +<p>And that was the object-lesson which a kindly fate gave to the +Perkinses in time to prevent their engaging a French maid for the +children.</p> +<p>As to its value as a lesson, as to the value of its results, +those who are familiar with French as spoken by nurse-instructed +youths can best judge.</p> +<p>I am not unduly familiar with that or any other kind of +French, but I have ideas in the matter.</p> +<h2><a name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 123</span>THE +CHRISTMAS GIFTS OF THADDEUS</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> you may thoroughly comprehend +how it happened that on last Christmas Day Thaddeus meted out +gifts of value so unprecedented to the domestics of what he has +come to call his “menagerie”—the term menage +having seemed to him totally inadequate to express the state of +affairs in his household—I must go back to the beginning of +last autumn, and narrate a few of the incidents that took place +between that period and the season of Peace on Earth and +Good-will to Men. Should I not do so there would be many, I +doubt not, who would deem Thaddeus’s course unjustifiable, +especially when we are all agreed that Christmas Day should be +for all sorts and conditions of men the gladdest, happiest day of +all the year.</p> +<p>Thaddeus and Bessie and the little Thad had returned to their +attractive home after an absence of two months in a section of +the Adirondacks whither the march of civilization had not carried +such comforts as gas, good beds, and other luxuries, to which the +little family had become so accustomed that real camp-life, with +its beds of balsam, lights of tallow, and “fried +coffee,” possessed no charms for them. They were all +renewed in spirit and quite ready to embark once more upon the +troubled seas of house-keeping; and, as they saw it on that first +night at home, their crew was a most excellent one. The +cook rose almost to the exalted level of a chef in the estimation +of Thaddeus as course upon course, to the number of seven, each +made up of some delicacy of the season, came to the table and +received the indorsement which comes from total +consumption. They were well served, too, these courses; and +the two heads of the family, when Mary, the waitress, would enter +the butler’s pantry, leaving them alone and unobserved, +nodded their satisfaction to each other across the snow-white +cloth, and by means of certain well-established signals, such as +shaking their own hands and winking the left eye simultaneously, +with an almost vicious jerk of the head, silently congratulated +themselves upon the prospects of a peaceful future in a domestic +sense.</p> +<p>“That was just the best dinner I have had in +centuries,” said Thaddeus, as they adjourned to the library +after the meal was over. “The broiled chicken was so +good, Bess, that for a moment I wished I were a bachelor again, +so that I could have it all; and after I got over my first +feeling of hesitation over the oysters, and realized that it was +September with an R—belated, it is true, but still +there—and ate six of them, I think I could have gone +down-stairs and given cook a diamond ring with seven solitaires +in it and a receipted bill for a seal-skin sacque. I +don’t see how we ever could have thought of discharging her +last June, do you?”</p> +<p>“It was a good dinner,” said Bessie, discreetly +ignoring the allusion to their intentions in June; for she had a +well-defined recollection that at that time Bridget had given +signs of emotional insanity every time she was asked to prepare a +five-o’clock breakfast for Thaddeus and his friends, to the +number of six, who had acquired the habit of going off on little +shooting trips every Saturday, making the home of Thaddeus their +headquarters over Sunday, when the game the huntsmen had bagged +the day before had to be plucked, cleaned, and cooked by her own +hands for dinner. “And it was nicely selected, +too,” she added. “I sometimes think that +I’ll let Bridget do the ordering at the market.”</p> +<p>“H’m! Well,” said Thaddeus, shaking +his head dubiously, “I haven’t a doubt that Bridget +could do it, and would be very glad to do it; but I don’t +believe in setting a cook up in business.”</p> +<p>“How do you mean?”</p> +<p>“I mean that I haven’t any doubt that Bridget +would in a very short time become a highly successful +produce-broker with bull tendencies. The chicken market +would be buoyant, and the quotations on the Stock Exchange of, +say, B., S., and P.-U.-C.—otherwise, Beef, Succotash, and +Picked-Up-Codfish—would rise to the highest point in +years. Why, my dear, by Christmas-time cook would have our +surplus in her own pocket-book; and in the place of the customary +five oranges and an apple she would receive from the butcher a +Christmas-card in the shape of a check of massive, if not +graceful, proportions. No, Bess, I think the old way is the +best.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps it is. By-the-way, John has kept the +grounds looking well, hasn’t he? The lawn +doesn’t seem to have a weed on it,” said Bessie, +walking to the window and gazing out at the soft velvety sward in +the glow of twilight.</p> +<p>“Yes, it looks pretty well; but there’s a small +heap of stuff over there near the fence which rather inclines me +to believe that the weeds have been pulled out within the last +few days—in fact, since you wrote to announce our +return. John is an energetic man in an emergency, and I +haven’t a doubt he has been here at least once a week ever +since we left. I’ll keep a record of John this +fall.”</p> +<p>And so the two contented home-comers talked happily along, and +when they closed their eyes in sleep that night they were, upon +the whole, very well satisfied with life.</p> +<p>Weeks elapsed, and with them some of the air-castles +collapsed. Whether custom staled the infinite variety of +the cook’s virtues, and age withered the efficiency of +Mary, the waitress, or whether something was really and radically +wrong with the girls, Thaddeus and Bessie could not make +out. Certain it was, however, that by slow degrees the +satisfaction for which that first dinner seemed to stand as +guarantor wore away, and dissatisfaction entered the +household. Mary developed a fondness for church at most +inconvenient hours—hours at which in fact, neither Thaddeus +nor Bessie had ever supposed church could be. That it was +eternal they both knew, but they had always supposed there were +intermissions. Then the cook’s family, which had +hitherto been moderately healthful, began to show signs of +invalidism, though no such calamity as actual dissolution ever +set its devastating step within the charmed circle of her +relatives. Cousins fell ill whom she alone could comfort; +nephews developed maladies for which she alone could care; and, +according to Thaddeus’s record, John had been compelled on +penalty of a fine to attend the funerals of some twenty-four +deceased intimate friends in less than two months, although the +newspapers contained no mention of the existence of a possible +epidemic in the Celtic quarter. It is true that John showed +a more pronounced desire to make his absence less inconvenient to +his employer than did Mary and the cook, by providing a +substitute when the Ancient Order of Funereal Hibernians +compelled him to desert the post of duty; but Thaddeus declared +the “remedy worse than the disease,” for the reason +that John’s substitute—his own +brother-in-law—was a weaver by trade, whose baskets the +public did not appreciate, and whose manner of cutting grass in +the early fall and of tending furnace later on was atrocious.</p> +<p>“If I could hire that man in summer,” Thaddeus +remarked one night when John’s substitute had +“fixed” the furnace so that the library resembled a +cold-storage room, “I think we could make this house an +arctic paradise. He seems to have a genius for taking +warmth by the neck and shaking enough degrees of heat out of it +to turn a conflagration into an iceberg. I think I’ll +tell the Fire Commissioners about him.”</p> +<p>“He can’t compare with John,” was +Bessie’s answer to this.</p> +<p>“No. I think that’s why John sends him here +when he is off riding in carriages in honor of his deceased +chums. By the side of Dennis, John is a jewel.”</p> +<p>“John is very faithful with the furnace,” said +Bessie. “He never lets it go down. Why, day +before yesterday I turned off every register in the house, and +even then had to open all the windows to keep from +suffocating.”</p> +<p>“But that wasn’t all John, my dear,” said +Thaddeus. “The Weather Bureau had something to do +with it. It was a warm day for this season of the year, +anyhow. If John could combine the two businesses of selling +coal and feeding furnaces, I think he would become a +millionaire. And, by-the-way, I think you ought to speak to +him, Bess, about the windows. Since you gave him the work +of window-cleaning to do, it is evident that he thinks I have +nothing to say in the matter, for he persistently ignores my +requests that he clean them in squares as they are made, and not +rub up a little circle in the middle, so that they look like +blocks of opalescent glass with plate-glass bulls’-eyes let +into the centre. Look at them now.”</p> +<p>“Dennis did that. John had to go to Mount Vernon +with his militia company to-day.”</p> +<p>“Dennis is well named, for his name is—But never +mind. I’ll credit John with his twelfth day off in +four weeks.”</p> +<p>From John to Bridget, in the matter of days off, was an easy +step, though such was Bessie’s consummate diplomacy that +Thaddeus would probably have continued in ignorance of the extent +to which Bridget absented herself had they not both taken +occasion one day to visit some relatives in Philadelphia, and on +their return home at night found no dinner awaiting them.</p> +<p>“What’s the matter now?” asked Thaddeus, a +little crossly, perhaps, for visiting relatives in Philadelphia +irritated him—possibly because he and they did not agree in +politics, and their assumption that Thaddeus’s party was +entirely made up of the ignorant and self-seeking was galling to +him. “Why isn’t dinner ready?”</p> +<p>“Mary says that an hour after we left cook got a +telegram from New York saying that her brother was dying, and she +had to go right off.”</p> +<p>“I thought that brother was dying last week?”</p> +<p>“No; that was her mother’s brother, he got +well. This is another person entirely.”</p> +<p>“Naturally,” snapped Thaddeus. “But +next time we get a cook let’s have one whose relatives are +all dead, or in the old country, where they can’t be +reached. I’m tired of this business.”</p> +<p>“Well, you shouldn’t be cross with me about it, +Thad,” said Bessie, with a teary look in her eyes. +“I have to put up with a great deal more of it than you +have, only you never know of it. Why, I’ve cooked +one-half of my own luncheons in the last month.”</p> +<p>“And the dinners, too, I’ll wager,” growled +Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“No; she’s always got home for dinner +heretofore.”</p> +<p>“Well, we’ll keep a record-book for her, too, +then. And we’ll be generous with her. +We’ll allow her just as I was allowed in +college—twenty-five per cent. in cuts. If she has +twenty-five and a fifth per cent. she goes.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think I understand,” said +Bessie.</p> +<p>“Well, we’ll put it this way: There are thirty +days in a month. That means ninety meals a month. If +she cooks sixty-seven and a half of them she can stay; if she +fails to cook the other twenty-two and a half she can stay; but +woe be unto her if she slips up by even so little as a millionth +part of the sixty-eighth!”</p> +<p>“I don’t see how you can manage the half part of +it.”</p> +<p>“We’ll leave that to her,” said Thaddeus, +firmly; “and, what is more, we’ll put John and Mary +on the same basis, and Dennis we won’t have on any basis at +all. A man who will take advantage of his brother’s +absence at a wake to black the shoes of that brother’s only +employer with stove-polish is not the kind of a man I want to +have around.”</p> +<p>“It will be a very good plan,” said Bessie, +“for all except Mary. Her absences she cannot well +avoid. She has to go to church.”</p> +<p>“How many times a week does she have to go?” +queried Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“She is required to go to confession.”</p> +<p>“Well, let her reform, and then she’ll have +nothing to go to confession for. I don’t believe +that’s where she goes, either. I notice that one-half +those evenings she takes off, permitting me to mind the front +door, and enabling us both to acquire proficiency in the art of +helping ourselves at dinner, there’s a fireman’s ball +or a policeman’s hop or a letter-carriers’ theatre +party going on somewhere in the county, and it’s my belief +the worshipping she does on these occasions is at the shrine of +Terpsichore or that of Melpomene, which is a heathen custom and +not to be tolerated here. If she’s so fond of living +in church we can quote to her Hamlet’s advice to +Ophelia—‘Get thee to a nunnery!’ Why, +Bess, I was mortified to death the other night when Bradley dined +here, he’s all the time bragging about his menagerie, and I +tried to bluff him out and make him believe we were waited on by +angels in disguise, and you know what happened. He came, +saw, and I was regularly knocked out. You let us in; we +waited on ourselves; cook had prepared the seven-o’clock +dinner at five to give her a chance to go to the hospital to see +her brother-in-law with the measles; John had one of his +Central-African fires on, and Bradley’s laughing about it +yet.”</p> +<p>“Mr. Bradley was very disagreeable the other night, +anyhow,” sniffed Bessie. “He acted as if he +were camping out!”</p> +<p>“Well, I can’t honestly say I blame him for +that,” retorted Thaddeus. “It only needed a +balsam bed and a hole in the roof to let the rain in on him to +complete the illusion.”</p> +<p>Finally, December came, and the tendencies of absenteeism on +the part of the servants showed no signs of abatement. They +were remonstrated with, but it made no difference. They +didn’t go out, they declared, because they wanted to, but +because they had to. Cook couldn’t let her relatives +go unattended. Mary’s religious scruples simply +dragged her out of the house, try as she would to stay in; and as +for John, as long as Dennis was on hand to take his place he +couldn’t see why Mr. Perkins was dissatisfied. To +tell the truth, John had recently imbibed some more or less +capitalistic—or anticapitalistic—doctrines, and he +was quite incapable of understanding why, if a street-contractor, +for instance, was permitted by the laws of the land to sublet the +work for which he had contracted, he, John, should not be +permitted to sublet his contract to Dennis, piecemeal, or even as +a whole, if he saw fit to do so.</p> +<p>Thaddeus, seeing that Bessie was very much upset by the +condition of affairs, had said little about it since Thanksgiving +Day, when he had said about as much as the subject warranted +after a six-course dinner had been hurried through in one hour, +two courses having been omitted that Bridget might catch the +train leaving for New York at 3.10. Nor would he have said +anything further than the final words of dismissal had he not +come home late one afternoon to dress for a dinner at his club, +when he discovered that, owing to the usual causes, the +week’s wash, which the combined efforts of cook and +waitress should have finished that day, was delayed twenty-four +hours, the consequence being that Thaddeus had to telephone to +the haberdashery for a dress-shirt and collar.</p> +<p>“It’s bad enough having one’s wife buy these +things for one, but when it comes to having a salesman sell you +over a telephone the style of shirt and collar ‘he always +wears himself,’ it is maddening,” began Thaddeus, and +then he went on at such an outrageous rate that Bessie became +hysterical, and Thaddeus’s conscience would not permit of +his going out at all that night, and that was the beginning of +the end.</p> +<p>“I’ll fix ’em at Christmas-time,” said +Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“You won’t forget them at Christmas, I hope, +Thad,” said Bessie, whose forgiving nature would not hear +of anything so ungenerous as forgetting the servants during the +holidays.</p> +<p>“No,” laughed Thaddeus. “I won’t +forget ’em. I’ll give ’em all the very +things they like best.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I see,” smiled Bessie. “On the +coals-of-fire principle. Well, I shouldn’t wonder but +it would work admirably. Perhaps they’ll be so +ashamed they’ll do better.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps—if the coals do not burn too deep,” +said Thaddeus, with a significant smile.</p> +<p>Christmas Eve arrived, and little Thad’s tree was +dressed, the gifts were arranged beneath it, and all seemed in +readiness for the dawning of the festal day, when Bessie, taking +a mental inventory of the packages and discovering nothing among +them for the servants save her own usual contribution of a dress +and a pair of gloves for each, turned and said to Thaddeus:</p> +<p>“Where are the hot coals?”</p> +<p>“The what?” asked Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“The coals of fire for the girls and John.”</p> +<p>“Oh!” Thaddeus replied, “I have ’em in +the library. I don’t think they’ll go well with +the tree.”</p> +<p>“What are they?” queried Bess, with a natural show +of curiosity. “Checks?”</p> +<p>“Yes, partly,” said Thaddeus. “Mary is +to have a check for $16, Bridget one for $18, and John one for +$40.”</p> +<p>“Why, Thaddeus, that’s extravagant. Now, my +dear, there’s no use of your doing anything of +that—”</p> +<p>“Wait and see,” said Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“But, Teddy!” Bessie remonstrated. +“Those are the amounts of their wages. You will spoil +them, and if I—”</p> +<p>“As I said before, wait, Bess, wait!” said +Thaddeus, calmly. “You’ll understand the whole +scheme to-morrow, after breakfast.”</p> +<p>And she did, and when she did she almost wished for a moment +that she didn’t, for after breakfast Thaddeus summoned the +three offenders into his presence, and the effect was not +altogether free from painful features to the forgiving Bess.</p> +<p>“Bridget,” Thaddeus said, “do you remember +what Mrs. Perkins gave you last Christmas?”</p> +<p>“I do not!” replied Bridget, rather +uncompromisingly; for it was a matter of history that she thought +Mrs. Perkins on the last Christmas festival had shown signs of +parsimony in giving her a calico gown instead of one of silk.</p> +<p>“Well, you won’t forget next year what you got +this,” said Thaddeus, dryly. “Here is an +envelope containing $18, the amount of your wages until January +1st. Mary, what did you get last Christmas?”</p> +<p>“A box of candy, sir.”</p> +<p>“Nothing else?”</p> +<p>“I believe there was a dress of some kind. I gave +it to my cousin.”</p> +<p>“Good. I am glad you were so generous. Here +is an envelope for you. It has $16 in it, your wages up to +January 1st.”</p> +<p>Bessie stood in the doorway, a mute witness to what seemed to +her an incomprehensible scene.</p> +<p>“John, what did you get?”</p> +<p>“Five dollars an’ a day off.”</p> +<p>“And a two-dollar bill for Dennis, eh?”</p> +<p>“Dennis got that.”</p> +<p>“True. Well, John, here’s $40 for +you—that pays you until January 1st. Now, it strikes +me that, considering the behavior of you three people, I am very +generous to pay you your wages a week in advance, but I am not +going to stop there. I have studied you all very carefully, +and I’ve tried to discover what it is you are fondest +of. Cook and Mary do not seem to care much for dresses, +though I believe there are dresses and gloves under the tree for +them, which fact they will doubtless forget by next Christmas +Day. The five dollars and a day off John seems to remember, +though from his manner of recalling it I do not think his +remembrance is a very pleasing one. Now I’ve found +out what it is you all like the best, and I’m going to give +it to you.”</p> +<p>Here the trio endeavored to appear gracious, though they were +manifestly uneasy and a bit dissatisfied with what John would +have called “the luks of t’ings.”</p> +<p>“Cook, from the 1st of January, may go to her relatives, +and stay until they’re every one of them restored to +health, if it takes forty years. Mary may consider herself +presented with sixty years’ vacation without pay; and for +you, John, I have written this letter of recommendation to the +proprietors of a large undertaking establishment in New York, who +will, I trust, engage you as a chief mourner, or perhaps +hearse-driver, for the balance of your days. At any rate, +you, too, after January 1st, may consider yourself free to go to +any funeral or militia exercises, or anything else you may choose +to honor with your presence, at your own expense. You are +all given leave of absence without pay until further +notice. I wish you a merry Christmas. +Good-morning.”</p> +<p>There were no farewells in the house that day; and inasmuch as +there was no Christmas dinner either, Thaddeus and Bessie did not +miss the service of the waitress, who, when last seen, was +walking airily off towards the station, accompanied by the +indignant John and a bundle-laden cook. Next day their +trunks went also.</p> +<p>“It was rather a hard thing to do on Christmas Day, +Thaddeus,” said Bessie, a little later.</p> +<p>“Oh no,” quibbled Thaddeus. “It was +very easy under the circumstances, and quite appropriate. +This is the time of peace on earth and good-will to men. +The only way for us to have peace on earth was to get rid of +those two women; and as for John, he has my good-will, now that +he is no longer in my employ.”</p> +<h2><a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 149</span>A +STRANGE BANQUET</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Thaddeus</span>,” said Bessie +to her husband as they sat at breakfast one morning, shortly +after the royal banquet over which “Grimmins” had +presided, “did you hear anything strange in the house last +night? Something like a footstep in the hall?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Thaddeus. “I slept like a +top last night. I didn’t hear anything. Did +you?”</p> +<p>“I thought so,” said Bessie. “About +two o’clock I waked up with a start, and while it may have +been a sort of waking dream, I was almost certain I heard a +rustling sound out in the hall, and immediately after a creaking +on the stairs, as though there was somebody there.”</p> +<p>“Well, why on earth didn’t you wake me, +Bess?” returned Thaddeus. “I could easily have +decided the matter by getting up and investigating.”</p> +<p>“That was why I didn’t wake you, Teddy. +I’d a great deal rather lose the silver or anything else in +the house a burglar might want than have you hit on the head with +a sand-club,” said Bessie. “You men are too +brave.”</p> +<p>“Thank you,” said Thaddeus, with a smile, as he +thought of a certain discussion he had had not long before at the +club, in which he and several other brave men had reached the +unanimous conclusion that the best thing to do at dead of night, +with burglars in the house, was to crawl down under the +bedclothes and snore as loudly as possible. +“Nevertheless, my dear, you should have told me.”</p> +<p>“I will next time,” said Bessie.</p> +<p>“Was anything in the house disturbed?” Thaddeus +asked.</p> +<p>“No,” said Bessie. “Not a thing, as +far as I can find out. Mary says that everything was all +right when she came down, and the cook apparently found things +straight, because she hasn’t said anything.”</p> +<p>So Thaddeus and Bessie made up their minds that the latter had +been dreaming, and that nothing was wrong. Two or three +days later, however, they changed their minds on the +subject. There was something decidedly wrong, but what it +was they could not discover. They were both awakened by a +rustling sound in the hallway, outside of their room, and this +time there was a creak on the stairs that was unmistakable.</p> +<p>“Don’t move, Thaddeus,” said Bessie, in a +terrified whisper, as Thaddeus made a brave effort to get up and +personally investigate. “I wouldn’t have you +hurt for all the world, and there isn’t a thing down-stairs +they can take that we can’t afford to lose.”</p> +<p>Thaddeus felt very much as Bessie did, and it would have +pleased him much better to lie quietly where he was than run the +risk of an encounter with thieves. He had been brave enough +in the company of men to advocate cowardice in an emergency of +just this sort, but now that this same course was advocated by +his wife, he saw it in a different light. Prudence was +possible, cowardice was not. He must get up, and get up he +did; but before going out of his room he secured his revolver, +which had lain untouched and unloaded in his bureau-drawer for +two years, and then advanced cautiously to the head of the stairs +and listened—Bessie meanwhile having buried her face in her +pillow as a possible means of assuaging her fears. It is +singular what a soothing effect a soft feather pillow sometimes +has upon the agitated nerves if the nose of the agitated person +is thrust far enough into its yielding surface.</p> +<p>“Who is there?” cried Thaddeus, standing at the +head of the stairs, his knees all of a shake, but whether from +fear or from cold, as an admirer of Thaddeus I prefer not to +state.</p> +<p>Apparently the stage-whisper in which this challenge to a +possible burglar was uttered rendered it unavailing, for there +was no reply; but that there was some one below who could reply +Thaddeus was now convinced, for there were sounds in the +library—sounds, however, suggestive of undue attention to +domestic duties rather than of that which fate has mapped out for +house-breakers. The library floor was apparently being +swept.</p> +<p>“That’s the biggest idiot of a burglar I’ve +ever heard of,” said Thaddeus, returning to his room.</p> +<p>“Wh-wha-what, d-dud-dear?” mumbled Mrs. Perkins, +burying her ear in the pillow for comfort now that she was +compelled to take her nose away so that she might talk +intelligibly.</p> +<p>“I say that burglar must be an idiot,” repeated +Thaddeus. “What do you suppose he is doing +now?”</p> +<p>“Wh-wha-what, d-dud-dear?” asked Bessie, +apparently unable to think of any formula other than this in +speaking, since this was the second time she had used it.</p> +<p>“He is sweeping the library.”</p> +<p>“Then you must not go down,” cried Bessie, sitting +up, and losing her fear for a moment in her anxiety for her +husband’s safety. “A burglar you might manage, +but a maniac—”</p> +<p>“I must go, Bess,” said Thaddeus, firmly.</p> +<p>“Then I’m going with you,” said Mrs. +Perkins, with equal firmness.</p> +<p>“Now, Bess, don’t be foolish,” returned +Thaddeus, his face assuming a graver expression than his wife had +ever seen there. “This is my work, and it is none of +yours. I positively forbid you to stir out of this +room. I shall be very careful, and you need have no concern +for me. I shall go down the backstairs and around by the +porch, and peep in through the library window first. The +moonlight will be sufficient to enable me to see all that is +necessary.”</p> +<p>“Very well,” acquiesced Bessie, “only do be +careful.”</p> +<p>Thaddeus donned his long bath-robe, put on his slippers, and +started to descend. The stairs were so dark that he could +with difficulty proceed—and perhaps it was just as well for +Thaddeus that they were. If there had been light enough for +him to see two great glaring eyes that stared at him through that +darkness out from the passageway at the foot of the stairs, upon +which he turned his back when he went out upon the porch, it is +not unlikely that a very serious climax to his strange experience +would have been reached then and there. As it was, he saw +nothing, but kept straight ahead, stepped noiselessly out upon +the piazza, crept stealthily along in the soft light of the moon, +until he reached the library window. There he stopped and +listened. All was still within—so still that the +beating of his heart seemed like the hammering of a sledge upon +an anvil by contrast. Then, raising himself cautiously upon +his toes, he peered through the window into the room, the greater +part of which was made visible by the wealth of the moon’s +light streaming into it.</p> +<p>“Humph!” said Thaddeus, after he had directed his +searching gaze into every corner. “There isn’t +anybody there at all. Most incomprehensible thing I ever +heard of.”</p> +<p>Rising, he walked back to the piazza door, and went thence +boldly into the library and lit the gas. His piazza +observations were then verified, for the room was devoid of life, +save for Thaddeus’s own presence; but upon the floor before +the hearth was a broom, and there were evidences also that the +sweeping sounds he had heard had been caused by no less an +instrument than this, for in the corner of the fireplace was a +heap of dust, cigar ashes, and scraps of paper, which Thaddeus +remembered had been upon the hearth in greater or less quantity +when he had turned out the gas to retire a few hours before.</p> +<p>“This is a serious matter,” he said to +himself. “Something is wrong, and I doubt if there +have been burglars in the house; but I can ascertain that without +trouble. If the doors and windows are all secure the +trouble is internal.”</p> +<p>Every accessible door and window on the basement and first +floor was examined, and, with the exception of the piazza door, +which Thaddeus remembered to have unlocked himself a few minutes +before, every lock was fastened. The disturbance had come +from within.</p> +<p>“And Bess must never know it,” said he; “it +would worry her to death.” And then came a thought to +Thaddeus’s mind that almost stopped the beating of his +heart. “Unless she has discovered it in my +absence,” he gasped. In an instant he was mounting +the stairs to hasten to Bessie’s side, as though some +terrible thing were pursuing him.</p> +<p>“Well, what was it, Ted?” she asked, as he entered +the room.</p> +<p>Perkins gave a sigh of relief. All was safe enough +above-stairs at least.</p> +<p>“Nothing much,” said Thaddeus, in a moment. +“There is no one below.”</p> +<p>“But what could it have been?”</p> +<p>“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said +Thaddeus, “unless it was a stray cat in the house. +The sweeping sound may have been caused by a cat scratching its +collar—or purring—or—or—something. +At any rate, things appear to be all right, my dear, so +let’s go to sleep.”</p> +<p>Thaddeus’s assumed confidence in the rightness of +everything, rather than his explanations, was convincing to Mrs. +Perkins, and in a very short while she was sleeping the sleep of +the just and serene; but to Thaddeus’s eye there came no +more sleep that night, and when morning came he rose +unrefreshed. There were two problems confronting him. +The first was to solve the mystery of the swept library floor; +the second was to do this without arousing his wife’s +suspicions that anything was wrong. To do the first he +deemed it necessary to remain at home that day, which was easy, +for Thaddeus was more or less independent of office-work.</p> +<p>“I’m glad you’re not going down,” said +Mrs. Perkins, when he announced his intention of remaining at +home. “You will be able to make up for your loss of +sleep last night.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Thaddeus. “It’s the +only thing I can do, I’m so played out.”</p> +<p>Breakfast passed off pleasantly in spite of a great +drawback—the steak was burned almost to a crisp, and the +fried potatoes were like chips of wood.</p> +<p>“Margaret seems to be unfamiliar with the art of cooking +this morning,” said Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“So it would seem,” said Bessie. “This +steak is horrible.”</p> +<p>“The worst part of it is,” said Thaddeus, +“she has erred on the wrong side. If the steak were +underdone it wouldn’t be so bad. Isn’t it a +pity Edison can’t invent a machine to rarefy an overdone +steak?”</p> +<p>“That would be a fine idea,” smiled Bessie. +“And to take a Saratoga chip and make it less like a chip +off a granite block.”</p> +<p>“I don’t mind the potatoes so much,” said +Thaddeus. “I can break them up in a bowl of milk and +secure a gastronomic novelty that, suitably seasoned, isn’t +at all bad, but the steak is hopeless.”</p> +<p>“Maybe she heard that cat last night, and thought it was +a burglar, just as we did,” Bessie suggested. +“I can’t account for a breakfast like this in any +other way, can you?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Thaddeus, shortly, and then he had an +idea; and when Thaddeus had an idea he was apt to become +extremely reticent.</p> +<p>“Poor Thad!” thought Bessie, as she noted his +sudden change of demeanor. “He can’t stand loss +of sleep.”</p> +<p>The morning was spent by Thaddeus in the “noble pastime +of snooping,” as he called it. The house was searched +by him in a casual sort of way from top to bottom for a clew to +the mystery, but without avail. Several times he went below +to the cellar, ostensibly to inspect his coal supply, really to +observe the demeanor of Margaret, the cook. Barring an +unusual pallor upon her cheek, she appeared to be as she always +had been; but with the waitress it was different. Mary was +evidently excited over something, but over what Thaddeus could +not, of course, determine at that time. Later in the day, +however, the cause of her perturbation came out, and +Thaddeus’s effort to keep Bessie from anxiety over the +occurrence of the night before was rendered unavailing. It +was at luncheon. The table was set in a most peculiar +fashion. The only china upon it was from an old set which +had been discarded a year previous to the time of this story, and +Bessie naturally wanted to know why, and the waitress broke +down.</p> +<p>“It’s—it’s all we have, +ma’am,” said she, her eyes filling with tears.</p> +<p>“All we have?” echoed Mrs. Perkins in +surprise. “Why, what do you mean? Where is the +other set?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” protested the waitress.</p> +<p>“You don’t know?” said Thaddeus, taking the +matter in hand. “Why don’t you know? +Isn’t the china a part of your care?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” replied the maid, +“but—it’s gone, sir, and I don’t know +where.”</p> +<p>“When did you miss it?” asked Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“Not until I came to set the table for lunch.”</p> +<p>“Was it in its proper place at +breakfast-time?”</p> +<p>“I didn’t notice, sir. The breakfast dishes +were all there, but I don’t remember seeing the other +plates. I didn’t think to look.”</p> +<p>“Then it wasn’t a cat,” said Bessie, sinking +back into her chair; “we have been robbed.”</p> +<p>“Well, it’s the first time on record, I guess, +that thieves have ever robbed a man of his china,” said +Thaddeus, calmly. “Have you looked for the +plates?” he added, addressing the waitress.</p> +<p>“No, sir,” she replied, simply. “Where +could I look?”</p> +<p>“That’s so—where?” said Bessie. +“There isn’t much use looking for dishes when they +disappear like that. They aren’t like whisk-brooms or +button-hooks to be mislaid easily. We have been robbed; +that’s all there is about that.”</p> +<p>“Oh, well,” said Thaddeus, “let’s eat +lunch, and see about it afterwards.”</p> +<p>This was quite easy to say, but to eat under the circumstances +was too much for either of the young householders. The +luncheon left the table practically untouched; and when it was +over Thaddeus called his man into the house, wrote a note to the +police-station, asking for an officer in citizen’s clothes +at once, and despatched it by him, with the injunction to let +very little grass grow under his feet on the way down to +headquarters. He then summoned the waitress into the +library.</p> +<p>“Have you said anything to Margaret about the +china?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” she replied.</p> +<p>“What did you say?”</p> +<p>“I told her as how wasn’t it funny the way it had +went, sir.”</p> +<p>“And what did she say?”</p> +<p>“Nothing, sir. Only she seemed to think it was +funny, because she laughed.”</p> +<p>“And what did you say then?”</p> +<p>“Nothing, Mr. Perkins. Margaret and me have very +little conversation, because she don’t fancy me, and +prefers talkin’ to herself like.”</p> +<p>“H’m!” said Thaddeus. “Talks to +herself, does she?”</p> +<p>“All the time, sir,” returned the waitress, +“and she seems very fond of it, sir. She laughs, and +says things, and then laughs again. She does it by the +hour.”</p> +<p>“How long has this been going on?”</p> +<p>“About a week, sir. I noticed it first last time I +had my day out. I didn’t get in until nearly eleven +o’clock, and I found her sitting at the table havin’ +supper and talkin’ and laughin’ like as though there +was folks around.”</p> +<p>“She was entirely alone, was she?” asked +Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“What did you do when you came in?”</p> +<p>“I said ‘Hello’ to her and sat down opposite +to her at the table, where there was a place set, and I told her +I was glad she had something to eat and a place set for me, +because I hadn’t had any supper and I was hungry, +sir.”</p> +<p>“Did she make any reply?”</p> +<p>“No, sir. She looked at me kind of indignant, and +turned out the gas and went up to bed, leaving me in the +dark.”</p> +<p>Thaddeus’s brow grew thoughtful again. It wrinkled +into a half-dozen lines as he asked:</p> +<p>“Why didn’t you speak of this before?”</p> +<p>“It ain’t for me to be telling tales, Mr. +Perkins,” she said. “All cooks as I’ve +lived with is queer like, and I didn’t think any more about +it.”</p> +<p>“All right,” said Thaddeus. “You may +go. Only, Mary, don’t speak of the plates again to +Margaret. Say as little to her as you can, in fact, about +anything. If you notice anything queer, report to me at +once.”</p> +<p>The waitress left the room, and Thaddeus turned to his +desk. It was plain from his appearance that light was +beginning to be let in on places that up to this point had been +more or less dark to him, although, as a matter of fact, he could +not in any way account for the mystery of the vanished plates any +more than he could for the sweeping of the library in the still +hours of the night. He had an idea as to who the culprit +was, and what that idea was is plain enough to us, but the +question of motive was the great puzzle to him now.</p> +<p>“If she did take them, why should she?” was the +problem he was trying to solve; and then, as if his trials were +not already great enough for one day, Bessie broke excitedly into +the room.</p> +<p>“Thaddeus!” she cried, “there’s +something wrong in this house; my best table-cloth is missing, +our dessert-spoons are gone, and what do you suppose has +happened?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know—a volcano has developed in the +cellar, I suppose,” said Thaddeus.</p> +<p>“No,” said Bessie, “it isn’t as bad as +that; but the ice-cream man has telephoned up to know whether we +want the cream for dinner or for eleven o’clock, according +to the order as he understands it.”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Thaddeus, “I don’t see +anything very unusual in an ice-cream man’s needing to be +told three or four times what is expected of him.”</p> +<p>“But I never ordered any cream at all,” said +Bessie.</p> +<p>“Ah,” said Thaddeus, “that’s +different. Did you tell Partinelli so?”</p> +<p>“I did, and he said he was sure he wasn’t +mistaken, because he had taken the order himself.”</p> +<p>“From you?”</p> +<p>“No, from Margaret.”</p> +<p>“Then it’s all right,” said Thaddeus; +“it’s a clew that fits very nicely into my theory of +our recent household disturbances. If you will wait, I +think things will begin to develop very shortly, and then we +shall be able to dismiss this indictment against the cat we +thought we heard last night.”</p> +<p>“Do you think Margaret is dishonest?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” said Thaddeus. +“I shouldn’t be surprised if she had friends with +taking ways; in other words, my dear, I suspect that Margaret is +in league with people outside of this house who profit by her +mistaken notions as to how to be generous; but I can’t +prove it yet.”</p> +<p>“But what are you going to do?”</p> +<p>“Set a watch. I have sent for a detective,” +said Thaddeus.</p> +<p>This was too much for Bessie. She was simply overcome, +and she sat squarely down upon the arm-chair, which fortunately +was immediately behind her. I think that if it had not +been, she would have plumped down upon the floor.</p> +<p>“Detective!” she gasped.</p> +<p>“Exactly,” said Thaddeus, “and here he +comes,” he added, as a carriage was driven up to the door +and one of the citizen police descended therefrom.</p> +<p>“You would better leave us to talk over this matter +together,” said Thaddeus, as he hastened to the door. +“We shall be able to manage it entirely, and the details +might make you nervous.”</p> +<p>“I couldn’t be more nervous than I am,” said +Bessie; “but I’ll leave you just the same.”</p> +<p>Whereupon she went to her room, and Thaddeus, for an hour, was +closeted with the detective, to which he detailed the whole +story.</p> +<p>“It’s one of the two,” said the latter, when +Thaddeus had finished, “and I agree with you it is more +likely to be the cook than the waitress. If it was the +waitress, she couldn’t have stood your examination as well +as you say she did. Perhaps I’d better see her, +though, and talk to her myself.”</p> +<p>“No, I shouldn’t,” said Thaddeus +“we’ll pass you off as a business acquaintance of +mine up from town, and you can stay all night and watch +developments.”</p> +<p>So it was arranged. The detective was introduced into +the family as a correspondent of Thaddeus’s firm, and he +settled down to watch the household. Afternoon and evening +went by without developments, and at about eleven o’clock +every light in the house was extinguished, and the whole family, +from the head of the house to the cook, had apparently +retired.</p> +<p>At half-past eleven, however, there were decided signs of life +within the walls of Thaddeus’s home. The clew was +working satisfactorily, and the complete revelation of the +mystery was close at hand.</p> +<p>The remainder of the narrative can best be told in the words +of the detective:</p> +<p>“When Mr. Perkins sent for me,” he said, +“and told me all that had happened, I made up my mind that +he had a servant in his house for whom the police had been on the +lookout for some time. I thought she was a certain Helen +Malony, alias Bridget O’Shaughnessy, alias many other +names, who was nothing more nor less than the agent of a clever +band of thieves who had lifted thousands of dollars of swag in +the line of household silver, valuable books, diamonds, and other +things from private houses, where she had been employed in +various capacities. I could not understand why she should +have made ’way with the dishes and Mrs. Perkins’s +table-cloth, but there’s no accounting for tastes of people +in that line of business, so I didn’t bother much trying to +reason that matter out.</p> +<p>“After we’d had dinner and spent the evening in +Mr. Perkins’s library, the family went to bed, and I +pretended to do the same. Instead of really going to bed, I +waited my chance and slipped down the stairs into the +dining-room, and got under the table. At eleven +o’clock the maidservants went up to their rooms, and at +quarter-past there wasn’t a light burning in the +house. I sat there in the dining-room waiting, and just as +the clock struck half-past eleven I heard a noise out on the +stairs, and in less than half a minute a sulphur match was struck +almost over my head under the table, and there stood the cook, +her face livid as that of a dead person, and in her hand she held +a candle, which she lit with the match. From where I was I +could see everything she did, which was not much. She +simply gathered up all the table fixings she could, and started +down-stairs into the kitchen with ’em. Then I went up +to Mr. Perkins’s room and called him. He put on his +clothes and got out his revolver, when we stole down-stairs +together, leaving Mrs. Perkins up-stairs, with her boy’s +nurse and the waitress to keep her company.</p> +<p>“In a second we were in the laundry, which was as dark +as the ace of spades, except where the light from four gas-jets +in the kitchen streamed in through the half-open door. Mr. +Perkins was for pouncing in on the cook at once, but I was after +the rest of the gang as much as I was for the cook, and I +persuaded him to wait; and, by thunder, we were paid for +waiting. It was the queerest case I ever had.</p> +<p>“That woman—looking for all the world like a +creature from some other part of the universe than this earth, +her eyes burning like two huge coals, her checks as yellow and +clear as so much wax, and her lips blue-white, with a great +flaming red tongue sort of laid between them—worked like a +slave cleaning the floor, polishing the range, and scrubbing the +table. Then she dusted all the chairs, and, producing the +missing table-cloth, she laid it snow-white upon the table. +In two minutes more the lost china was brought to light out of +the flour-barrel, polished off, and set upon the +table—enough for twenty people. The dining-room +things I had seen her take she arranged as tastefully as any one +could want, and then the finest lay-out in the way of salads, +cakes, fruits, and other good things I ever saw was brought in +from the cellar. To do all this took a marvellously short +time. It was five minutes of midnight went she got through, +and then she devoted three minutes to looking after +herself. She whisked out a small hand-glass and touched up +her hair a bit. Then she washed her hands and pinned some +roses on her dress, smiled a smile I can never forget in my life, +and opened the kitchen door and went out.</p> +<p>“‘She’s going to give a supper!’ +whispered Mr. Perkins.</p> +<p>“‘It looks like it,’ said I. +‘And a mighty fine one at that.’</p> +<p>“In a minute she came back with a pail, in which were +four bottles of champagne, in her hand. This she took into +the cellar, returning to the kitchen as the clock struck +twelve.</p> +<p>“Then the queerest part began,” said the +detective. “For ten minutes by the clock people were +apparently arriving, though, as far as Mr. Perkins or I could +see, there wasn’t a soul in the kitchen besides +Margaret. She was talking away like one possessed. +Every once in a while she’d stop in the middle of a +sentence and rush to the door and shake hands with some, to us +invisible, arrival. Then she’d walk in with them +chatting and laughing. Several times she went through the +motion of taking people’s hats, and finally, if we could +judge from her actions, she had ’em all seated at the +table. She passed salads all around, helping each guest +herself. She sent them fruit and cakes, and then she +brought out the wine, which she distributed in the same +fashion. She also apologized because some ice-cream she had +ordered hadn’t come.</p> +<p>“When the invisible guests appeared to have had all they +could eat, she began the chatty part again, and never seemed to +be disturbed but once, when she requested some one not to sing so +loud for fear of disturbing the family.</p> +<p>“Altogether it was the weirdest and rummest thing +I’d ever seen in my life. We watched it for one full +hour, and then we quit because she did. At one +o’clock she apparently bade her guests good-night, after +which she gathered up and put away all the eatables there were +left—and, of course, everything but what she had eaten +herself still remained—cleaned all the dishes, restored +them to their proper places in the dining-room pantry, and went +back up-stairs to her room.</p> +<p>“Mr. Perkins and I didn’t know what to make of +it. There wasn’t a thing stolen, and it was clear to +my mind that I’d done the woman an injustice in connecting +her with thieves. She was honest, except in so far as she +had ordered all those salads and creams and things from time to +time on Mr. Perkins’s account, which was easy enough for +her to do, since Mrs. Perkins let her do the ordering. +There was only one explanation of the matter. She was +crazy, and I said so.</p> +<p>“‘I fancy you are right,’ said Mr. +Perkins. ‘We’ll have to send her to an +asylum!’</p> +<p>“‘That’s the thing,’ said I, +‘and we’d better do it the first thing in the +morning. I wouldn’t tackle her to-night, because +she’s probably excited, and like as not would make a great +deal of trouble.’</p> +<p>“And that,” said the detective, “was where +Mr. Perkins and I made our mistake. Next morning she +wasn’t to be found, and to this day I haven’t heard a +word of her. She disappeared just like that,” he +said, snapping his fingers. “Of course, I don’t +mean to say that anything supernatural occurred. She simply +must have slipped down and out while we were asleep. The +front door was wide open in the morning, and a woman answering to +her description was seen to leave the Park station, five miles +from the Perkins house, on the six-thirty train that +morning.”</p> +<p>“And you have no idea where she is now?” I asked +of the detective, when he had finished.</p> +<p>“No,” he answered, “not the slightest. +For all I know she may be cooking for you at this very +minute.”</p> +<p>With which comforting remark he left me.</p> +<p>For my part, I hope the detective was wrong. If I +thought there was a possibility of Margaret’s ever being +queen of my culinary department, I should either give up +house-keeping at once and join some simple community where every +man is his own chef, or dine forevermore on canned goods.</p> +<h2><a name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +181</span>JANE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">She</span> was quite the reverse of +beautiful—to some she was positively unpleasant to look +upon; but that made no difference to Mrs. Thaddeus Perkins, who, +after long experience with domestics, had come to judge of the +value of a servant by her performance rather than by her +appearance. The girl—if girl she were, for she might +have been thirty or sixty, so far as any one could judge from a +merely superficial glance at her face and figure—was neat +of aspect, and, what was more, she had come well +recommended. She bore upon her face every evidence of +respectability and character, as well as one or two lines which +might have indicated years or toothache—it was difficult to +decide which. On certain days, when the weather was very +warm and she had much to do, the impression was that the lines +meant years, and many of them, accentuated as they were by her +pallor, the whiteness of her face making the lines seem almost +black in their intensity. When she smiled, however, which +she rarely did—she was solemn enough to have been a +butler—one was impressed with the idea of hours of pain +from a wicked tooth. At any rate, she was engaged as +waitress, and put in charge of the first floor of the Perkins +household.</p> +<p>“I fancy we’ve at last got a real treasure,” +said Mrs. Perkins. “There’s no nonsense about +Jane—I think.” The last two words were added +apologetically.</p> +<p>“Where did you get her?” asked Thaddeus. +“At an Imbecility Office?”</p> +<p>“I don’t quite know what you mean—an +Imbecility Office?”</p> +<p>“Only my pet, private, and particular name for it, my +dear. You would speak of it as an Intelligence Office, no +doubt,” was the reply. “My observation of the +fruit of Intelligence Offices has convinced me that they deal in +Imbecility.”</p> +<p>“Not quite,” laughed Mrs. Perkins. +“They look after Domestic Vacancies.”</p> +<p>“Well, they do it with a vengeance,” said +Perkins. “We’ve had more vacancies in this +house to do our cooking and our laundering and our house-work +generally than two able-bodied men could shake sticks at. +It seems to me that the domestic servant of to-day is fonder of +preoccupation than of occupation.”</p> +<p>“Jane, I think, is different from the general +run,” said Mrs. Perkins. “As I said, she has no +nonsense about her.”</p> +<p>“Is she—an—an ornament to the +scene—pretty, and all that?” asked Perkins.</p> +<p>“Quite the reverse,” replied the little +house-keeper. “She is as plain as a—as +a—”</p> +<p>“Say hedge-fence and be done with it,” said +Perkins. “I’m glad of it. What’s +the use of providing a good dinner for your friends if they are +going to spend all their time looking at the waitress? When +I give a dinner it makes me tired to have the men afterwards +speak of the waitress rather than of the <i>purée</i> or +the birds. If any domestic is to dominate the repast at all +it should be the cook.”</p> +<p>“Service counts for a great deal, though, Ted,” +suggested Mrs. Perkins.</p> +<p>“True,” replied Thaddeus; “but on the whole, +when I am starving, give me a <i>filet béarnaise</i> +served by a sailor, rather than an empty plate brought in in +style by a butler of illustrious lineage and impressive +manner.” Then he added: “I hope she isn’t +too homely, Bess—not a ‘clock-stopper,’ as the +saying is. You don’t want people’s appetites +taken away when you’ve worked for hours on a menu +calculated to tickle the palates of your guests. Would her +homeliness—ah—efface itself, for instance, in the +presence of a culinary creation, or is it likely to overshadow +everything with its ineffaceable completeness?”</p> +<p>“I think she’ll do,” returned Mrs. Perkins; +“especially with your friends, who, it seems to me, would +one and all insist upon finishing a ‘creation,’ as +you call it, even if lightning should strike the +house.”</p> +<p>“From that point of view,” said he, +“I’m confident that Jane will do.”</p> +<p>So Jane came, and for a year, strange to relate, was all that +her references claimed for her. She was neat, clean, and +capable. She was sober and industrious. The wine had +never been better served; the dinner had rarely come to the table +so hot. Had she been a butler of the first magnitude she +could not so have discouraged the idea of acquaintance; her +attraction, if anything, was a combination of her self-effacement +and her ugliness. The latter might have been noticed as she +entered the dining-room; it was soon forgotten in the +unconsciously observed ease with which she went through her +work.</p> +<p>“She’s fine,” said Perkins, after a dinner +of twelve covers served by Jane with a pantry assistant. +“I’ve always had a sneaking notion that nothing short +of a butler could satisfy me, but now I think otherwise. +Jane is perfection, and there is nothing paralyzing about her, as +there is about most of those reduced swells who wait on tables +nowadays.”</p> +<p>In August the family departed for the mountains, and the house +was left in charge of Jane and the cook, and right faithfully did +they fulfil the requirements of their stewardship. The +return in September found the house cleaned from top to +bottom. The hardwood floors and stairs shone as they had +rarely shone before, and as only an unlimited application of what +is vulgarly termed “elbow-grease” could make them +shine. The linen was immaculate. Ireland is not freer +from snakes than was the house of Perkins from cobwebs, and no +speck of dust except those on the travellers was visible. +It was evident that even in the absence of the family Jane was +true to her ideals, and the heart of Mrs. Perkins was glad. +Furthermore, Jane had acquired a full third set of teeth, which +seemed to take some of the lines from her face, and, as Perkins +observed, added materially to the general effect of the +surroundings, although they were distressingly new. But, +alas! they marked the beginning of the end. Jane ceased to +wait upon the table with that solemnity which is essential to the +manner of a “treasure”; she smiled occasionally, and +where hitherto she had treated the conversation at the table with +stolid indifference, a witticism would invariably now bring the +new teeth unto view.</p> +<p>“Alas!” cried Thaddeus, “our butleress has +evoluted backwards. She grins like an ordinary +waitress.”</p> +<p>It was too true. The possession of brilliantly white +teeth seemed to have brought with it a desire to show them, which +was destructive of that dignity with which Jane had previously +been hedged about, and substituted for it a less desirable +atmosphere of possible familiarity, which might grow upon very +slight provocation into intimacy, not to mention a nearer +approach to social equality.</p> +<p>“I don’t suppose we can blame her exactly,” +said Perkins, when discussing one or two of Jane’s lapses +from her old-time standard. “I haven’t a doubt +that if I’d gone for years without teeth, I’d become +a regular Cheshire cat, with a new, complete <i>édition de +luxe</i> of celluloid molars. Still, I wish she’d +paid more attention to the dinner and less to Mr. Barlow’s +conversation last night. She stood a whole minute, with the +salad-bowl in her hand, waiting for him to reach the point of his +story about the plumber who put a gas-pipe through +Shakespeare’s tenor in Westminster Abbey, and when he +finished, and she smiled, you’d have thought a dozen +gravestones to the deceased’s memory had been conjured up +before us.”</p> +<p>“It’s a small fault, Thaddeus,” returned +Mrs. Perkins, “but I’ll speak to her about +it.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I wouldn’t,” said Perkins; “let +it go; she means well, and when we got her we didn’t +suspect she’d turn out such a jewel. She’s +merely approaching her norm, that is all. We ought to be +thankful to have had such perfection for one year. +It’s too bad it couldn’t continue; but what +perfection does?”</p> +<p>Nothing, therefore, was said, and Jane smiled on, yet waited +most acceptably and kept all things decently and in +order—for a little while. Along about Christmas-time +a further decadence and additional flaw in the jewel was +discovered, and it was Perkins himself who discovered it. +It happened one day while he was at work alone in the house, Mrs. +Perkins having gone out shopping. A friend from Boston +appeared—a friend interested in bric-à-brac and +china generally. Thaddeus, to whom a luncheon in solitary +grandeur was little short of abomination, invited his Boston +friend to stay and share pot-luck with him, knowing, hypocrite +that he was, that pot-luck did not mean pot-luck at all, but a +course luncheon which many men would have found all-sufficient at +dinner. The Boston friend accepted, and the luncheon was +served by Jane. In the course of the repast the visitor +observed:</p> +<p>“Pretty good china you have, Perkins.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” returned Thaddeus, “pretty +good. I’ve always had a <i>penchant</i> for +china. My mother-in-law thinks I’m extravagant, and +sometimes I think she is right. You never saw my +Capodimonte coffees, did you?”</p> +<p>“No,” replied the Bostonian, “I never +did. Where’d you get ’em?”</p> +<p>“London,” replied Perkins, “last time I was +over. You must see them, by all means. Ah, Jane, hand +Mr. Bunkerrill one of the Capodimonte coffees.”</p> +<p>“Wan o’ the what, sorr?” asked the +treasure.</p> +<p>Thaddeus blushed. To have his jewel go back on him at +such a crisis was excessively annoying. “One of those +gold after-dinner coffee-cups—one of the little ones, with +the flowery raised figures,” he said, sharply.</p> +<p>“Oh!” said Jane, “wan o’ thim with +somebody else’s initial on the bottom?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Thaddeus, fuming inwardly.</p> +<p>“Quite a connoisseur, that woman,” laughed the +visitor, as Jane went after the dinner-cup. +“She’s observed the china mark. She +know’s N doesn’t stand for Perkins.”</p> +<p>Thaddeus laughed weakly. “She probably thinks we +got them second-hand,” he said.</p> +<p>“Very likely you did,” retorted the Bostonian, and +Jane returned with the desired cup. “An admirable +specimen,” continued the connoisseur; and them, turning the +cup bottom upwards in search of the mark, he disclosed to his own +and Thaddeus’s astonished gaze no less an object than the +remains of a mashed green pea, a reminiscence of the last Perkins +dinner, and conclusive evidence that at times Jane was not as +careful in the washing of her china as she might have been.</p> +<p>It would be futile and useless for me to attempt to describe +the emotions of Thaddeus. I fancy a large enough number of +us having been through similar experiences to comprehend the +man’s mortification and his inward wrath. It was too +great to find suitable expression at the moment. Nothing +short of the absolute destruction of the cup and the annihilation +of Jane could have adequately expressed Perkins’s true +feelings. He was not by nature, however, a +scene-maker—it would have been better if he had +been—so he said nothing, abiding by his rule, which seemed +to be that the man of the house would do better to reprehend the +short-comings of a delinquent servant by blowing up his wife +rather than by going direct to the core of the trouble and +reading the maid a lecture. A great many men adopt this +same method. I do. It is the easiest, though it is +possibly prompted by that cowardice which is latent with us +all. I never in my life have discharged more than one +servant, and I not only did not do it gracefully, but discharged +the wrong one; since which time I have left all that sort of work +to others more competent than I. Perkins’s method was +precisely thus.</p> +<p>“I’m not going to interfere,” was his +invariable remark in cases of the kind under discussion; which +was unwise, for if he had even scolded a servant as he did his +wife for the servant’s fault he might have secured better +service sooner or later.</p> +<p>Unfortunately, when Mrs. Perkins reached home that night she +was so very tired with her exertions in the shops that Thaddeus +hadn’t the heart to tell her what had happened, and when +morning came the episode was forgotten. When it did recur +to his mind it so happened that Mrs. Perkins was out of +reach. The result was that a month had passed before Mrs. +Perkins cane into possession of the facts, and it was then, of +course, too late to mention it to Jane.</p> +<p>“You should have given her a good talking to at the +time,” said Mrs. Perkins. “It’s +awful! I don’t know what has got into Jane. My +best table-cloth has got a great hole in it, and she is very +careless with the silver. My fruit-knife last night was not +clean.”</p> +<p>“I suppose <i>you</i> spoke to her about that?” +said Perkins, smiling.</p> +<p>“Not exactly; I sent for another, and handed her the +dirty one,” returned Mrs. Perkins. “I guess she +felt all that I could have said.”</p> +<p>And time went on, and Jane continued to decay. She +pulled corks from olive-bottles with the carving-fork prongs and +bent them backwards. She developed a habit of going out and +leaving her work undone. The powdered sugar was allowed to +resolve itself into small, hard, pill-shaped lumps of various +sizes. Breakfast had a way of being served cold. The +coffee was at times merely tepid; in short, it seemed as if she +really ought to be discharged; but then there was invariably some +reason for postponing the fatal hour. Either her kindness +to the children or a week or two of the old-time efficiency, her +unyielding civility, her scrupulous honesty, her willing +acquiescence in any new duty imposed, an impression that she was +suffering, any one or all of these reasons kept her on in her +place until she became so much a fixture in the household, so +much one of the family, that the idea of getting rid of her +seemed beyond the possibility of realization. That the axe +should fall her employers knew well, and many a resolve was taken +that at the end of the season she should go, yet neither Mrs. +Perkins nor her husband liked to tell her so. Her good +points were still too potent, although none could deny that all +confidence in her efficiency was shattered past repair. The +situation finally reached a point where it inspired reflections +of a more or less humorous order.</p> +<p>“I tell you what I think,” said Thaddeus one +evening, after a particularly flagrant breach on Jane’s +part, involving a streak of cranberry sauce across a +supposititiously clean plate: “you won’t discharge +her, Bess, and I won’t; suppose we send for Mr. Burke, and +get him to do it.”</p> +<p>Mr. Burke was the one reliable man in town. It +didn’t make much difference what the Perkinses wanted done, +they generally sent for Mr. Burke to do it, largely because when +he attempted a commission he saw it through. A carpenter +and builder by trade, he had for many years looked after the +repairs needful to the Perkins’ dwelling; he had come often +between Thaddeus and unskilled labor; he had made bookcases which +were dreams of convenience and sufficiently pleasing to the eye; +he had “fixed up” Mrs. Perkins’s garden; he had +supplied the family with a new gardener when the old one had +taken on habits of drink, which destroyed not only himself but +the cabbages; he had kept an eye on the plumbers; he had put up, +taken down, and repaired awnings—in short, as Perkins said, +he was a “Universal.” Once, when a delicate +piece of bric-à-brac had been broken and the china-mender +asserted that it could not be mended, Perkins had said, +“See if Burke can’t fix it,” and Burke had +fixed it; and as final tribute to this wonder, Perkins had said, +in suffering:</p> +<p>“My dear, I’m afraid I have appendicitis. +Send for Mr. Burke.”</p> +<p>“Mr. Burke!” echoed his wife.</p> +<p>“Yes, Mr. Burke,” moaned the sufferer. +“If my vermiform appendix is to be removed, I’d +rather have Mr. Burke do it with a chisel and saw than any +surgeon I know; and I won’t take ether either, because it +is such a satisfaction to see him work.”</p> +<p>So, when this happy pair of house-holders had reached what +might be described as the grand climateric of their patience, and +it was finally decided that Jane’s usefulness was a thing +of the past, and utterly beyond redemption, Thaddeus naturally +suggested turning to his faithful friend, Mr. Burke, to rid them +of their woes, and, indeed, but for Jane’s own +intervention, I fear that course would have proved the sole +alternative to her becoming an irremovable fixture in the +household. But it was Jane herself who solved the +problem.</p> +<p>It was two days after the cranberry episode that the solution +came, and it was in this wise:</p> +<p>“Did ye send for me?” Jane asked, suddenly +materializing in Mrs. Perkins’s room.</p> +<p>“No, Jane, I haven’t; why?”</p> +<p>The girl began to shed tears.</p> +<p>“Because—you’d ought to have, +ma’am. I know well enough that I ain’t +satisfactory to you,” she returned, her voice quivering, +“and I can’t be, and I know you want me to +go—and I—I’ve come to give you +notice.”</p> +<p>Then Mrs. Perkins looked at Jane with sorrow on her +countenance, for she had acquired an affection for her which the +maid’s delinquencies had not been able to efface.</p> +<p>“Can’t you try and do better?” she +asked.</p> +<p>“No, ma’am,” returned Jane. “Not +with the system—never. Mr. Perkins is too easy, and +you do be so soft-hearted it don’t keep a girl up to her +work. When I first come here, ma’am, not +knowin’ ye well, I was afraid to be anything but what was +right, but the way you took accidents, and a bit of a +shortcomin’ once in a while, sort of took away my fear, and +I’ve been goin’ down hill ever since. +Servant-girls is only human, Mrs. Perkins.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Perkins looked at Jane inquiringly.</p> +<p>“We needs to be kept up to our work just as much as +anybody else, and when a lady like yourself is too easy, it gets +a girl into bad habits, and occasionally it does us good if the +gentleman of the house will swear at us, Mrs. Perkins, and sort +of scare us, so it does. It was that that was the making of +me. The last place I was in, ma’am, I was so afraid +of both the missus and the gentleman that I didn’t dare to +be careless; and I didn’t dare be careless with you until I +found you all the time a-smilin’, whatever went wrong, and +Mr. Perkins never sayin’ a word, whether the dishes come to +the table clean or not.”</p> +<p>“Well, Jane,” said Mrs. Perkins, somewhat carried +away by this course of reasoning, “you haven’t been +what we hoped—there is no denying that; but knowing that +you were disappointing us, why couldn’t you have made a +special effort?”</p> +<p>“Oh, Mrs. Perkins,” sobbed the poor woman, +“you don’t understand. We’re all +disappointin’ to them we loves, but—it’s them +we fear—”</p> +<p>“Then why aren’t you afraid of us?”</p> +<p>Jane laughed through her tears. The idea was +preposterous.</p> +<p>“Afraid of you and Mr. Perkins? Ah!” she +said, sadly, “if I only could be—but I +can’t. Why, Mrs. Perkins, if Mr. Perkins should come +in here now and swear at me the way Mr. Barley did when I worked +there, I’d know he was only puttin’ it on, and that +inside he’d be laughin’ at me. No, ma’am, +it’s no use. I feel that I must go, or I’ll be +forever ruined. It was the cranberry showed me; a girl had +ought to be discharged for that. Dirty dinner plates +isn’t excusable, and yet neither of you said a word, and +next week it’ll be the same way—so I’m +goin’. You won’t send me off, so I’ve got +to do it myself.”</p> +<p>“Very well, Jane,” said Mrs. Perkins; “if +that is the way you feel about it we’ll have to part, I +suppose. I am sorry, but—”</p> +<p>The sentence was not finished, for Jane rushed weeping from +the room, and within a few days, her place having been filled, +the house knew her no more, except as an occasional visitor, +ostensibly to see the children. Later she got a place to +her satisfaction, and one night the Perkins were invited to dine +with Jane’s new employers. They went and found their +old-time “butler” at the very zenith of her +powers. She served the dinner as she had never served one +in her palmiest days in the Perkins’s dining-room; and when +all was over, and when Mrs. Perkins went up-stairs to don her +wrap to return home, she found Jane above waiting to help +her.</p> +<p>“I am glad to see you so happy, Jane,” she said, +as the girl held her cloak.</p> +<p>“Ah, ma’am, I’m not very happy.”</p> +<p>“You ought to be, here. Your work to-night was +perfect.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Jane, “it had to be, +for”—here her voice fell to a whisper—“I +don’t dare let it be different, ma’am. Mrs. +Harkins is a regular divvle, and the ould gentleman—well, +ma’am, he do swear finer ’n any gentleman I ever +met. It’s just the place for me.”</p> +<p>And Jane sighed as her old mistress left her.</p> +<p>“Wasn’t she great, Bess?” said Thaddeus, on +the way home.</p> +<p>“She was, indeed,” replied Mrs. Perkins, with a +smile. “It’s a pity I’m not a +divvle.”</p> +<p>Thaddeus laughed. “That’s so,” he +said; “or that I never learned to swear like a gentleman, +eh?”</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PASTE JEWELS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 4930-h.htm or 4930-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/9/3/4930 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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