The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England — Complete. Thomas Chandler Haliburton
of the cloth, for the smoke is filled with gas and all sorts of chemicals. Well, back I goes to my room agin’ to the rooks, chimbly swallers, and all, leavin’ a great endurin’ streak of wet arter me all the way, like a cracked pitcher that leaks; onriggs, and puts on dry clothes from head to foot.
“By this time breakfast is ready; but the English don’t do nothin’ like other folks; I don’t know whether it’s affectation, or bein’ wrong in the head—a little of both I guess. Now where do you suppose the solid part of breakfast is, Squire? Why, it’s on the side-board—I hope I may be shot if it ain’t—well, the tea and coffee are on the table, to make it as onconvenient as possible.
“Says I, to the lady of the house, as I got up to help myself, for I was hungry enough to make beef ache I know. ‘Aunty,’ sais I, ‘you’ll excuse me, but why don’t you put the eatables on the table, or else put the tea on the side-board? They’re like man and wife, they don’t ought to be separated, them two.’
“She looked at me, oh what a look of pity it was”, as much as to say, ‘Where have you been all your born days, not to know better nor that?—but I guess you don’t know better in the States—how could you know any thing there?’ But she only said it was the custom here, for she was a very purlite old woman, was Aunty.
“Well sense is sense, let it grow where it will, and I guess we raise about the best kind, which is common sense, and I warn’t to be put down with short metre, arter that fashion. So I tried the old man; sais I, ‘Uncle,’ sais I, ‘if you will divorce the eatables from the drinkables that way, why not let the servants come and tend. It’s monstrous onconvenient and ridikilous to be a jumpin’ up for everlastinly that way; you can’t sit still one blessed minit.’
“ ‘We think it pleasant,’ said he, ‘sometimes to dispense with their attendance.’
“ ‘Exactly,’ sais I, ‘then dispense with sarvants at dinner, for when the wine is in, the wit is out.’ (I said that to compliment him, for the critter had no wit in at no time,) ‘and they hear all the talk. But at breakfast every one is only half awake, (especially when you rise so airly as you do in this country,’ sais I, but the old critter couldn’t see a joke, even if he felt it, and he didn’t know I was a funnin’.) ‘Folks are considerably sharp set at breakfast,’ sais I, ‘and not very talkative. That’s the right time to have sarvants to tend on you.’
“ ‘What an idea!’ said he, and he puckered up his pictur, and the way he stared was a caution to an owl.
“Well, we sot and sot till I was tired, so thinks I, ‘what’s next?’ for it’s rainin’ agin as hard as ever.’ So I took a turn in the study to sarch for a book, but there was nothin’ there, but a Guide to the Sessions, Burn’s Justice, and a book of London club rules, and two or three novels. He said he got books from the sarkilatin’ library.
“ ‘Lunch is ready.’
“ ‘What, eatin’ agin? My goody!’ thinks I, ‘if you are so fond of it, why the plague don’t you begin airly? If you’d a had it at five o’clock this morning, I’d a done justice to it; now I couldn’t touch it if I was to die.’
“There it was, though. Help yourself, and no thanks, for there is no sarvants agin. The rule here is, no talk no sarvants—and when it’s all talk, it’s all sarvants.
“Thinks I to myself, ‘now, what shall I do till dinner-time, for it rains so there is no stirrin’ out?—Waiter, where is eldest son?—he and I will have a game of billiards, I guess.’
“ ‘He is laying down, sir.’
“ ‘Shows his sense,’ sais I, ‘I see, he is not the fool I took him to be. If I could sleep in the day, I’de turn in too. Where is second son?’
“ ‘Left this mornin’ in the close carriage, sir.’
“ ‘Oh cuss him, it was him then was it?’
“ ‘What, Sir?’
“ ‘That woke them confounded rooks up, out o’ their fust nap, and kick’t up such a bobbery. Where is the Parson?’
“ ‘Which one, Sir?’
“ ‘The one that’s so fond of fishing.’
“ ‘Ain’t up yet, Sir.’
“ ‘Well, the old boy, that wore breeches.’
“Out on a sick visit to one of the cottages, Sir.’
“When he comes in, send him to me, I’m shockin’ sick.’
“With that I goes to look arter the two pretty galls in the drawin’ room; and there was the ladies a chatterin’ away like any thing. The moment I came in it was as dumb as a quaker’s meetin’. They all hauled up at once, like a stage-coach to an inn-door, from a hand-gallop to a stock still stand. I seed men warn’t wanted there, it warn’t the custom so airly, so I polled out o’ that creek, starn first. They don’t like men in the mornin’, in England, do the ladies; they think ’em in the way.
“ ‘What on airth, shall I do?’ says I, ‘it’s nothin’ but rain, rain, rain—here in this awful dismal country. Nobody smokes, nobody talks, nobody plays cards, nobody fires at a mark, and nobody trades; only let me get thro’ this juicy day, and I am done: let me get out of this scrape, and if I am caught agin, I’ll give you leave to tell me of it, in meetin’. It tante pretty, I do suppose to be a jawin’ with the butler, but I’ll make an excuse for a talk, for talk comes kinder nateral to me, like suction to a snipe.’
“ ‘Waiter?’
“ ‘Sir.’
“ ‘Galls don’t like to be tree’d here of a mornin’ do they?’
“ ‘Sir.’
“ ‘It’s usual for the ladies,’ sais I, ‘to be together in the airly part of the forenoon here, ain’t it, afore the gentlemen jine them?’
“ ‘Yes, Sir.’
“ ‘It puts me in mind,’ sais I, ‘of the old seals down to Sable Island—you know where Sable Isle is, don’t you?’
“ ‘Yes, Sir, it’s in the cathedral down here.’
“ ‘No, no, not that, it’s an island on the coast of Nova Scotia. You know where that is sartainly.’
“ ‘I never heard of it, Sir.’
“ ‘Well, Lord love you! you know what an old seal is?’
“ ‘Oh, yes, sir, I’ll get you my master’s in a moment.’
And off he sot full chisel.
“Cus him! he is as stupid as a rook, that crittur, it’s no use to tell him a story, and now I think of it, I will go and smoke them black imps of darkness—the rooks.’
“So I goes up stairs, as slowly as I cleverly could, jist liftin’ one foot arter another as if it had a fifty-six tied to it, on pupus to spend time; lit a cigar, opened the window nearest the rooks, and smoked, but oh the rain killed all the smoke in a minite; it didn’t even make one on ’em sneeze. ‘Dull musick this, Sam,’ sais I, ‘ain’t it? Tell you what: I’ll put on my ile-skin, take an umbreller and go and talk to the stable helps, for I feel as lonely as a catamount, and as dull as a bachelor beaver. So I trampousses off to the stable, and says I to the head man, ‘A smart little hoss that,’ sais I, ‘you are a cleaning of: he looks like a first chop article that.’
“ ‘Y mae’,’ sais he.
“ ‘Hullo,’ sais I, ‘what in natur’ is this? Is it him that can’t speak English, or me that can’t onderstand? for one on us is a fool, that’s sartain. I’ll try him agin.
“So I sais to him, ‘He looks,’ sais