The Water Ghost and Others | Page 7

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 she said, sir," cried Bangletop, cutting De Herbert short. "When I am interested in the table-talk of cooks, I'll let you know. What I wish to hear is what do you think was the cause of her leaving?"
"I have no opinion on the subject," replied the private secretary, with becoming dignity. "I only know that at four o'clock this morning she knocked at my door, and demanded her wages for four days, and vowed she'd stay no longer in the house."
"And why, pray, did you not inform me of the fact, instead of having me travel away down here from London?" queried Bangletop.
"You forget, Baron," replied De Herbert, with a deprecatory gesture--"you forget that there