Paste Jewels. Bangs John Kendrick
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?”
“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.”
“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!”
“What are the consequences?” asked Bessie.
“Mother and father have been driven into a hotel, and the children have all been married.”
“That’s awful,” laughed Bessie.
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.
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.
“I hope you were not delayed seriously this morning, Mr. Liscomb,” said Bessie, after dinner.
“Oh no, not at all!” returned Liscomb, polite enough to tell an untruth, although its opposite was also a part of his system.
“Ellen must be more prompt with breakfast,” said Thaddeus. “Seven, sharp, is the hour. Did you speak to her about it?”
“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.”
“Was it her day out?”
“No; but her sister is sick, and she was sent for. It was all right. She left word where she was going with Jane.”
“That was very considerate of her,” said Liscomb, politely.
“Yes,” said Bessie. “Ellen’s a splendid woman.”
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:
“Bessie, I think you’d better tell Ellen about having breakfast promptly in the morning to-night, before we go to bed.”
“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.”
“Why didn’t you send up word to her by Jane?”
“Oh, she must be asleep by this time!”
“Oh!” said Thaddeus.
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.
Bessie was relieved, and Thaddeus was mad.
“We must have those rules,” he said.
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.
“Has Ellen said anything about the rules, my dear?” asked Thaddeus, a week or two later.
“Not a word,” returned Bessie.
“Has she ‘looked’ anything?”
“Volumes,” Bessie answered.
“Does she take exception to any of them?”
“No,” said Bessie, “and I’ve discovered why, too. She hasn’t read them.”
Thaddeus was silent for a minute. Then he said, quite firmly for him, “She must read them.”
“Must is a strong word, Teddy,” Bessie replied, “particularly since Ellen can’t read.”
“Then you ought to read them to her.”
“That’s what I think,” Bessie answered, amiably. “I’m going to do it very soon—day after to-morrow, I guess.”
“What has Jane said?” asked Thaddeus, biting his lip.
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.
“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.”
“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.”
Bessie’s eyes took on their watery aspect again.
“Do the fenders look so very badly, Ted?” she asked.
“They’re atrocious,” said Thaddeus.
“I’m sorry, dear; but I did my best. I polished them myself this afternoon; Jane had to go to a funeral.”
“Oh, my!” cried Thaddeus. “This subject’s too much for me. Let’s go out—somewhere, anywhere—to a concert.