Paste Jewels

“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 Dickens’ character,” said Robinson.  “Does he cost you very much, Thad?”

“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’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.”

“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 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.

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.”

“I am glad to know you feel that way,” said Bessie, simply, with a glance at Thaddeus which was full of wonderment.

“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!”

Thaddeus breathed again, now that the cook was under discussion.  He knew all about her.

“Yes, indeed,” said Bessie.  “He did well.”

“I mean the cook,” returned Bradley.  “You mean she did well, don’t you?”

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.

“What on earth is the story of Grimmins, Thaddeus?” she asked, as the door closed upon the departing guests.

Thaddeus threw himself wearily down upon the sofa and explained.  He told her all he had said about the butler and the cook.

“That’s the story of Grimmins,” he said, when he had finished.

“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.”

“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?”

“It’s all because of the tipsy-cake,” said Bessie.

“The what?” asked Thaddeus, sitting up and gazing at his wife as if he questioned her sanity.

“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.”

“And the other half?”

“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.”

“And the dinner?” said Thaddeus, a light breaking through into his troubled mind.

“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?”

“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?”

“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.”

“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—”

“You wish what, Teddy dear?”

“I almost wish we had not attempted the tipsy-cake, and had stuck to my original suggestion,” said Thaddeus.

“What was that?” Bessie asked.

“To have lemon pie for dessert, for Bradley’s sake,” answered Thaddeus, as he locked the front door and turned off the gas.

AN OBJECT-LESSON

It 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.

“He is nearly six years old,” said Bessie, “and I think he is quite intelligent enough to go to school, don’t you?”