Hocken and Hunken | Page 7

many years yet, please God again."
"I take 'e to witness this is not my askin'."
Captain Cai stared. "'Tis my askin', Rogers. I put it as a favour."
"What about your friend? I was thinkin' as maybe he'd take over the
job."
"'Bias?" Captain Cai shook his head. "He've no gift in money matters;
let be that I don't believe in mixin' friendship in business."
Mr Rogers pondered this for some while in silence. Then he struck a
hand-bell beside him, and his summons was answered by a small
short-skirted handmaiden who had waited table.
"Pipe's out, my dear," he announced. "An' while you're about it you
may mix us another glassful apiece."
"Not for me, thank 'ee," said Captain Cai.
"An' not for him, neither," said the girl. She was but a child, yet she
spoke positively, and yet again without disrespect in her manner. "'Tis
poison for 'ee," she added, knocking out the ash from her master's
churchwarden pipe and refilling it from the tobacco-jar. "You know
what the doctor said?"
"Ugh!--a pair o' tyrants, you an' the doctor! Just a thimbleful now--if
the Cap'n here will join me."
"You heard him? He don't want another glass."
Her solemn eyes rested on Captain Cai, and he repeated that he would
take no more grog.
She struck a match and held it to the pipe while the chandler drew a
few puffs. Then she was gone as noiselessly as she had entered.
"That's a question now," observed Captain Cai after a pause.

"What's a question?"
"Servants. I've talked it over with 'Bias, and he allows we should
advertise for a single housekeeper; a staid honest woman to look after
the pair of us--with maybe a trifle of extra help. That gel, for instance,
as waited table--"
"Tabb's child?"
"Is that her name?"
"She was christened Fancy--Fancy Tabb--her parents being a brace o'
fools. Ay, she's a nonesuch, is Tabb's child."
"With a manageable woman to give her orders--What's amiss with ye,
Rogers?"
Captain Cai put the question in some alarm, for the heaving of the
ship-chandler's waistcoat and a strangling noise in his throat together
suggested a sudden gastric disturbance.
But it appeared they were but symptoms of mirth. Mr Rogers lifted his
practicable hand, and with a red bandanna handkerchief wiped the
rheum from his eyes.
"Ho, dear!--you'll excuse me, Cap'n; but 'with a manageable woman,'
you said? I'd pity her startin' to manage the like of Fancy Tabb."
"Why, what's wrong wi' the child?"
"Nothin'--let be I can't keep a grown woman in the house unless she's a
half-wit. I have to get 'em from Tregarrick, out o' the Home for the
Feeble-Minded. But it don't work so badly. They're cheap, you
understand; an' Fancy teaches 'em to cook. If they don't show no
promise after a fortni't's trial, she sends 'em back. I hope," added the
chandler, perceiving Captain Cai to frown, "you're not feelin' no
afterthoughts about that leg o' mutton. Maybe I ought to have warned
'ee that 'twas cooked by a person of weak intellect."

"Don't mention it," said Captain Cai politely. "What the eye don't see
the heart don't grieve, as they say; an' the jint was boiled to a turn. . . . I
was only wonderin' how you picked up such a maid!"
The chandler struck again upon the small hand-bell. "I got her from a
bad debt."
"Seems an odd way--" began Captain Cai, after pondering for a
moment, but broke off, for the hand-maiden stood already on the
threshold.
"Fancy Tabb," commanded the chandler, "step fore, here, into the
light."
The child obeyed.
"You see this gentleman?"
"Yes, master." Her eyes, as she turned them upon Captain Cai, were
frank enough, or frank as eyes could be that guarded a soul behind
glooms of reserve. They were straight, at any rate, and unflinching, and
very serious.
"You know his business?"
"I think so, master. . . . Has he come to sign the lease? I'll fetch it from
your desk, if you'll give me the keys."
"Bide a bit, missy," said Captain Cai. "That'd be buying a pig in a poke,
when I ha'n't even seen the house yet--not," he added, with a glance at
Mr Rogers, "that I make any doubt of its suiting. But business is
business."
The child turned to her master, as much as to ask, "What, then, is your
need of me?"
"Cap'n Hocken wants a servant," said Mr Rogers, answering the look.
She appeared to ponder this. "Before seein' the house?" she asked, after

a moment or two.
"She had us there, Rogers!" chuckled Captain Cai; but the child was
perfectly serious.
"You would like me to show you the house? Master has the key."
"That's an idea, now!" He was still amused.
"When?"