Part 7 (2/2)

”Rather good change, don't you think?”

”Splendid,” said Phillips. ”That fellow served the dinner like a prince.”

”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.”

”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?”

Thaddeus looked like a rat in a corner with a row of cats to the fore.

”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.”

”What's his name?” asked Phillips.

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.

”Grimmins,” he said, desperately.

”Sounds like a d.i.c.kens' character,” said Robinson. ”Does he cost you very much?”

”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.

”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'hote 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.”

”I thought you said a minute ago Mrs. Perkins got him?” said Bradley, who is one of those disagreeable men with a memory.

”I thought you were talking about the cook,” said Thaddeus, uneasily. ”Weren't you talking about the cook?”

”No; but we ought to have been,” said Phillips, with enthusiasm.

”She's the queen of cooks. What do you pay her?”

”Sixteen,” said Thaddeus, glad to get back on the solid ground of truth once more.

”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.”

”Let's join the ladies,” said Thaddeus, abruptly. ”There's no use of our wasting our sweetness upon each other.”

If the head of the house had expected to be relieved from his unfortunate embarra.s.sments 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.

Thaddeus's troubles were set going again when he overheard Phillips saying to Bessie, ”Thaddeus has been telling us the remarkable story of Grimmins.”

Nor were his woes lightened any when he caught Bessie's reply: ”Indeed? What story is that?”

”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.”

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