The Attache | Page 8

me, do look so.
"'Will you be so good as to tell me, which door leads to the staircase,
Marm?' sais I.
"'Oh, is that all?' sais she, (I suppose, she thort I wanted her to get up
and get breakfast for me,) 'it's the first on the right, and she fixed her
cap agin' and laid down, and I took the first on the right and off like a
blowed out candle. There was the staircase. I walked down, took my
hat, onbolted the outer door, and what a beautiful day was there. I lit
my cigar, I breathed freely, and I strolled down the avenue.
"The bushes glistened, and the grass glistened, and the air was sweet,
and the birds sung, and there was natur' once more. I walked to the
lodge; they had breakfasted had the old folks, so I chatted away with
them for a considerable of a spell about matters and things in general,
and then turned towards the house agin'. 'Hallo!' sais I, 'what's this?
warn't that a drop of rain?' I looks up, it was another shower by Gosh. I
pulls foot for dear life: it was tall walking you may depend, but the
shower wins, (comprehensive as my legs be), and down it comes, as
hard as all possest. 'Take it easy, Sam,' sais I, 'your flint is fixed; you
are wet thro'--runnin' won't dry you,' and I settled down to a careless
walk, quite desperate.
"'Nothin' in natur', unless it is an Ingin, is so treacherous as the climate
here. It jist clears up on purpose I do believe, to tempt you out without

your umbreller, and jist as sure as you trust it and leave it to home, it
clouds right up, and sarves you out for it--it does indeed. What a sight
of new clothes I've spilte here, for the rain has a sort of dye in it. It
stains so, it alters the colour 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