Part 15 (1/2)
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”I had to carry the mournful news to Mrs. Mott, who lived in San Francisco. When we reached that port, I called upon her and performed the unpleasant duty. The manner in which she received the intelligence was, I conceive, in every way extraordinary. She cried, of course, and I offered her what consolation I could under the circ.u.mstances. I alluded to the fact that all men must die at any rate, and dear Mott, let us hope, had gone to a better world than this one of sorrow and trouble and so forth.
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”Mrs. Mott in reply said, with a voice broken with sobs: 'It isn't that--oh, it isn't that. I know he is better off; I'm sure he is happier; but you know what a very particular man he was, and oh, Mr.
Smiley, I fear that those brutal savages boiled him with cabbage.' There was no use trying to a.s.suage her grief under such circ.u.mstances, so I shook hands with her and left. But it was an odd idea. Mott with cabbage! I thought as I came away that he would have tasted better with the merest flavor of onion.”
When Lieutenant Smiley bade us good-night, I said,
”Mrs. Adeler, what do you think of that young man?”
”I think,” she said, ”that he tells the most dreadful falsehoods I ever listened to. It will be a burning shame if he succeeds in cutting out Robert with Miss Magruder.”
”Mrs. Adeler, he shall not do that. Bob shall have Miss Magruder at all hazards. If he does not propose to her shortly, I shall go down and broach the subject to her myself. We must defeat Smiley even if we have to violate all the rules of propriety to achieve that result.”
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CHAPTER XII.
HOW THE PLUMBER FIXED MY BOILER--A VEXATIOUS BUSINESS--HOW HE DIDN'T COME TO TIME, AND WHAT THE ULTIMATE RESULT WAS--AN ACCIDENT, AND THE PATHETIC STORY OF YOUNG CHUBB--REMINISCENCES OF GENERAL CHUBB--THE ECCENTRICITIES OF AN ABSENT-MINDED MAN--THE RIVALS--PARKER VERSUS SMILEY.
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We have had a great deal of trouble recently with our kitchen boiler, which is built into the wall over the range. It sprang a leak a few weeks ago, and the a.s.sistance of a plumber had to be invoked for the purpose of repairing it. I sent for the plumber, and after examining the boiler, he instructed the servant to let the fire go out that night, so that he could begin operations early the next morning. His order was obeyed, but in the morning the plumber failed to appear. We had a cold and very uncomfortable breakfast, and on my way to the depot I overtook the plumber going in the same direction. He said he was sorry to disappoint me, but he was called suddenly out of town on imperative business, and he would have to ask me to wait until the next morning, when he would be promptly on hand with his men. So we had no fire in the range upon that day, and the family breakfasted again upon cool viands without being cheered with a view of the plumber. Upon calling at the plumber's shop to ascertain why he had not fulfilled his promise, I was informed by the clerk that he had returned, but that he was compelled to go over to Wilmington. The man seemed so thoroughly in earnest in his a.s.sertion that the plumber positively would attend to my boiler upon the following morning that we permitted the range to remain untouched, and for the third time we broke our fast with a frigid repast. But the plumber and his a.s.sistants did not come.
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As it seemed to be wholly impossible to depend upon these faithless artisans, our cook was instructed to bring the range into service again without waiting longer for repairs, and to give the family a properly prepared meal in the morning. While we were at breakfast there was a knock at the gate, and presently we perceived the plumber and his men coming up the yard with a general a.s.sortment of tools and materials. The range at the moment of his entrance to the kitchen was red hot; and when he realized the fact, he flung his tools on the floor and expressed his indignation in the most violent and improper language, while his attendant fiends sat around in the chairs and growled in sympathy with their chief. When I appeared upon the scene, the plumber addressed me with the air of a man who had suffered a great and irreparable wrong at my hands, and he really displayed so much feeling that for a few moments I had an indistinct consciousness that I had somehow been guilty of an act of gross injustice to an unfortunate and persecuted fellow-being.
Before I could recover myself sufficiently to present my side of the case with the force properly belonging to it, the plumbers marched into the yard, where they tossed a quant.i.ty of machinery and tools and lead pipe under the shed, and then left.
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We had no fire in the range the next morning, but the plumbers did not come until four o'clock in the afternoon, and then they merely dumped a cart load of lime-boxes and hoes upon the asparagus bed and went home.
An interval of four days elapsed before we heard of them again; and meanwhile the cook twice nearly killed herself by stumbling over the tools while going out into the shed in the dark. One morning, however, the gang arrived before I had risen; and when I came down to breakfast, I found that they had made a mortar bed on our best gra.s.s plot, and had closed up the princ.i.p.al garden walk with a couple of wagon loads of sand. I endured this patiently because it seemed to promise speedy performance of the work. The plumbers, however, went away at about nine o'clock, and the only reason we had for supposing they had not forgotten us was that a man with a cart called in the afternoon and shot a quant.i.ty of bricks down upon the pavement in such a position that n.o.body could go in or out of the front gate. Two days afterward the plumbers came and began to make a genuine effort to reach the boiler. It was buried in the wall in such a manner that it was wholly inaccessible by any other method than by the removal of the bricks from the outside. The man who erected the house evidently was a party with the plumber to a conspiracy to give the latter individual something to do. They labored right valiantly at the wall, and by supper-time they had removed at least twelve square feet of it, making a hole large enough to have admitted a locomotive. Then they took out the old boiler and went away, leaving a most discouraging ma.s.s of rubbish lying about the yard.
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