The Water Ghost and Others | Page 7

as a
pastime for men of high station.
De Herbert would have starved had it not been for his old friend Baron
Bangletop, who offered him the post of private secretary, lately made
vacant by the death of the Duke of Algeria, who had been the
incumbent of that office for ten years, and in a short time the Baron of
Peddlington was in full charge of the domestic arrangements of his
friend. It was far from easy, the work that devolved upon him. He was a
proud, haughty man, used to luxury of every sort, to whom contact with
those who serve was truly distasteful; to whom the necessity of himself
serving was most galling; but he had the manliness to face the
hardships Fate had put upon him, particularly when he realized that
Baron Bangletop's attitude towards servants was such that he could
with impunity impose on the latter seven indignities for every one that

was imposed on him. Misery loves company, particularly when she is
herself the hostess, and can give generously of her stores to others.
Desiring to retrieve his fallen fortunes, the Baron of Peddlington
offered large salaries to those whom he employed to serve in the
Bangletop menage, and on payday, through an ingenious system of
fines, managed to retain almost seventy-five per cent of the funds for
his own use. Of this Baron Bangletop, of course, could know nothing.
He was aware that under De Herbert the running expenses of his
household were nearly twice what they had been under the dusky Duke
of Algeria; but he also observed that repairs to the property, for which
the late duke had annually paid out several thousands of pounds
sterling, with very little to show for it, now cost him as many hundreds
with no fewer tangible results. So he winked his eye--the only
unaristocratic habit he had, by-the-way--and said nothing. The revenue
was large enough, he had been known to say, to support himself and all
his relatives in state, with enough left over to satisfy even Ali Baba and
the forty thieves.
Had he foreseen the results of his complacency in financial matters, I
doubt if he would have persisted therein.
For some ten years under De Herbert's management everything went
smoothly and expensively for the Bangletop Hall people, and then there
came a change. The Baron Bangletop rang for his breakfast one
morning, and his breakfast was not. The cook had disappeared. Whither
or why she had gone, the private secretary professed to be unable to say.
That she could easily be replaced, he was certain. Equally certain was it
that Baron Bangletop stormed and raved for two hours, ate a cold
breakfast--a thing he never had been known to do before--and then
departed for London to dine at the club until Peddlington had secured a
successor to the departed cook, which the private secretary succeeded
in doing within three days. The baron was informed of his manager's
success, and at the end of a week returned to Bangletop Hall, arriving
there late on a Saturday night, hungry as a bear, and not too amiable,
the king having negotiated a forcible loan with him during his sojourn
in the metropolis.
"Welcome to Bangletop, Baron," said De Herbert, uneasily, as his
employer alighted from his coach.
"Blast your welcome, and serve the dinner," returned the baron, with a

somewhat ill grace.
At this the private secretary seemed much embarrassed. "Ahem!" he
said. "I'll be very glad to have the dinner served, my dear Baron; but
the fact is I--er--I have been unable to provide anything but canned
lobster and apples."
[Illustration]
"What, in the name of Chaucer, does this mean?" roared Bangletop,
who was a great admirer of the father of English poetry; chiefly
because, as he was wont to say, Chaucer showed that a bad speller
could be a great man, which was a condition of affairs exactly suited to
his mind, since in the science of orthography he was weak, like most of
the aristocrats of his day. "I thought you sent me word you had a
cook?"
"Yes, Baron, I did; but the fact of the matter is, sir, she left us last night,
or, rather, early this morning."
"Another one of your beautiful Parisian exits, I presume?" sneered the
baron, tapping the floor angrily with his toe.
"Well, yes, somewhat so; only she got her money first."
"Money!" shrieked the baron. "Money! Why in Liverpool did she get
her money? What did we owe her money for? Rent?"
"No, Baron; for services. She cooked three dinners."
"Well, you'll pay the bill out of your perquisites, that's all. She's done
no cooking for me, and she gets no pay from me. Why do you think she
left?"
"She said--"
"Never mind what