Paste Jewels - John Kendrick Bangs (popular books to read txt) 📗

get here until half-past seven."

"And Ellen had never opened any except with a tack-hammer," said Thaddeus. "Yes, I remember. But lightning never strikes twice in the same place. Put down the oysters. Then we'll have some kind of a puree--celery puree, eh?"

"That will be very good if Ellen can be induced to keep it thick."

"Perhaps we'd better tell her we want a celery consomme," suggested Thaddeus. "Then it will be sure to be as thick as a dictionary."

"I guess it will be all right," said Bessie. "What kind of fish?"

"Bradley likes salmon; Robinson likes sole; Phillips likes whitebait, and so do I."

"We'll have whitebait," said Bessie, simply. "Then a saddle of mutton?"

"Yes, and an entree of some kind, and next individual ruddy ducks."

"No Roman punch?"

"We can get along without that, I think," said Thaddeus. "We want to keep this dinner down to Mary's comprehension, and I'm afraid she wouldn't know what to make of an ice in the middle of the dinner. The chances are she'd want to serve it hot."

"All right, Teddy. What next?"

"I would suggest a lemon pie for Bradley," smiled Thaddeus.

"What do you say to Ellen's making one of her tipsy-cakes?" suggested Bessie.

"Just the thing," said Thaddeus, smacking his lips with enthusiasm. "I could eat a million of 'em. Then we can finish up with coffee and fruit."

So it was settled. The invitations were sent out, and Bessie devoted her energies for the next ten days to making ready.

Ellen's culinary powers were tested at every meal. For dinner one night she was requested to prepare the puree, which turned out to be eminently satisfactory. Thaddeus gave her a few practical lessons in the art of opening oysters, an art of which he had become a master in his college days--in fact, if his own words were to be believed, it was the sole accomplishment he had there acquired which gave any significance whatever to his degree of B. A.--so that in case the "fish gentleman" failed to appear in time nothing disastrous might result. Other things on the menu were also ordered at various times, and all went so well that when Thaddeus left home on the chosen Wednesday morning, it was with a serene sense of good times ahead. The invited guests had accepted, and everything was promising.

As Thaddeus had said, Wednesday was his busy day, and never had it been busier than upon this occasion. Everything moved smoothly, but there was a great deal to move, and finally, when all was done, and Thaddeus rose to leave his desk, it was nearly six o'clock, and quite impossible for him to reach home before seven. "I shall be late," he said, as he hurried off; and he was right. He arrived at home coincidently with his guests, rushed to his room, and dressed. But one glimpse had he of Bessie, and that was as they passed on the stairs, she hurrying down to receive her guests, he hurrying up to change his clothes.

"Oh, Thad!" was all she said, but to Thaddeus it was disconcerting.

"What is the matter, dear?" he asked.

"Nothing; I'll tell you later. Hurry," she gasped, "or the dinner will be spoiled."

Thaddeus hurried as he never hurried before, and in fifteen minutes walked, immaculate as to attire, into the drawing-room, where Bessie, her color heightened to an unusual degree, and her usually bright eyes fairly flaming with an unwonted brilliance, was entertaining the Bradleys, the Phillipses, and the Robinsons.

"Didn't expect me, did you?" said Thaddeus, as he entered the room.

"No," said Bradley, dryly. "This is an unexpected pleasure. I didn't even know you were a friend of the family."

"Well, I am," said Thaddeus. "One of the oldest friends I've got, in fact, which is my sole excuse for keeping you waiting. Old friends are privileged--eh, Mrs. Robinson?"

"Dinner is served," came a deep bass voice from the middle of the doorway.

Thaddeus jumped as if he had seen a ghost, and, turning to see what could have caused the strange metamorphosis in the soprano tremolo of Mary's voice, was astonished to observe in the parting of the portieres not the more or less portly Mary, but a huge, burly, English-looking man, bowing in a most effective and graceful fashion to Mrs. Bradley, and then straightening himself up into a pose as rigid and uncompromising as that of a marble statue.

"What on earth--" began Thaddeus, with a startled look of inquiry at Bessie. But she only shook her head, and put her finger to her lips, enjoining silence, which Thaddeus, fortunately, had the good sense to understand, even if his mind was not equal to the fathoming of that other mystery, the pompous and totally unexpected butler.

But if Thaddeus was surprised to see the butler, he was amazed at the dinner which the butler served. Surely, he thought, if Ellen can prepare a dinner like this, she ought to be above taking sixteen dollars and a home a month. It was simply a regal repast. The oysters were delicious, and the puree was superior to anything Thaddeus had ever eaten in the line of soups in his life--only it was lobster puree, and ten times better than Ellen's general run of celery puree. He winked his eye to denote his extreme satisfaction to Bessie when he thought no one was looking, but was overwhelmed with mortification when he observed that the wink had been seen by the overpowering butler, who looked sternly at him, as much as to say, "'Ow wery wulgar!"

"I must congratulate your cook upon her lobster puree, Mrs. Perkins," said Mr. Phillips. "It is delicious."

"Yes," put in Thaddeus. "But you ought to taste her celery puree. She is undoubtedly great on purees."

Bessie coughed slightly and shook her head at Thaddeus, and Thaddeus thought he detected the germ of a smile upon the cold face of the butler. He was not sure about it, but it curdled his blood just a little, because that ghost of a smile seemed to have just a tinge of a sneer in it.

"This isn't the same cook you had last time, is it?" asked Bradley.

"Yes," said Thaddeus. "Same one, though it was my wife who made that lem--"

"Thaddeus," interrupted Bessie, "Mrs. Robinson tells me that she and Mr. Robinson are going down to New York to the theatre on Friday night. Can't we all go?"

"Certainly," said Thaddeus. "I'm in on any little diversion of that sort. Why, what's this?--er--why, yes, of course. Phillips, you'll go; and you, too, eh, Bradley?"

Thaddeus was evidently much upset again; for, instead of the whitebait he and Bessie had decided upon for their fish course, the butler had entered, bearing in a toplofty fashion a huge silver platter, upon which lay a superb salmon, beautifully cooked and garnished. This he was now holding before Thaddeus, and stood awaiting his nod of approval before serving it. Inasmuch as Thaddeus not only expected whitebait, but had also never before seen the silver platter, it is hardly surprising that he should sit staring at the fish in a puzzled sort of way. He recovered shortly, however, gave the nod the butler was waiting for, and the dinner proceeded. And what a dinner it was! Each new course in turn amazed Thaddeus far more than the course that had preceded it; and now, when the butler, whom Thaddeus had got more or less used to, came in bearing a bottle of wine, followed by another stolid, well- dressed person, who might have been his twin-brother and who was in reality no more than assistant to the other, Thaddeus began to fear that the wine he had partaken of had brought about that duplication of sight which is said to be one of the symptoms of over-indulgence. Either that or he was dreaming, he thought; and the alternative was not a pleasant one, for Thaddeus did not over-indulge, and as a person of intellect he did not deem it the proper thing to dream at the dinner-table, since the first requisite of dreaming is falling asleep. This Thaddeus never did in polite society.

To say that he could scarcely contain himself for curiosity to know what had occurred to bring about this singular condition of affairs is to put it with a mildness which justice to Thaddeus compels me to term criminal. Yet, to his credit be it said, that through the whole of the repast, which lasted for two hours, he kept silent, and but for a slight nervousness of manner no one would have suspected that he was not as he had always been. Indeed, to none of the party, not even excepting his wife, did Thaddeus appear to be anything but what he should be. But when, finally, the ladies had withdrawn and the men remained over the coffee and cigars, he was compelled to undergo a still severer test upon his loyalty to Bessie, whose signal to him to accept all and say nothing he was so nobly obeying.

Bradley began it. "I didn't know you'd changed from women to men servants, Perkins?"

"Yes," said Thaddeus "we've changed."

"Rather good change, don't you think?"

"Splendid," said Phillips. "That fellow served the dinner like a prince."

"I don't believe he's any more than a duke, though," said Bradley. "His manner was quite ducal--in fact, too ducal, if Perkins will let me criticise. He made me feel like a poor, miserable, red-blooded son of the people. I wanted an olive, and, by Jove, I didn't dare ask for it."

"That wasn't his fault," said Robinson, with a laugh. "You forget that you live in a country where red blood is as good as blue. Where did you get him, Thaddeus?"

Thaddeus looked like a rat in a corner with a row of cats to the fore.

"Oh!--we--er--we got him from--dear me! I never can remember. Mrs. Perkins can tell you, though," he stammered. "She looks after the menagerie."

"What's his name?" asked Phillips.

Thaddeus's mind was a blank. He could not for the life of him think what name a butler would be likely to have, but in a moment he summoned up nerve enough to speak.

"Grimmins," he said, desperately.

"Sounds like a Dickens' character," said Robinson. "Does he cost you very much?"

"Oh no--not so very much," said Thaddeus, whose case was now so desperate that he resolved to put a stop to it all. Unfortunately, his method of doing so was not by telling the truth, but by a flight of fancy in which he felt he owed it to Bessie to indulge.

"No--he doesn't cost much," he repeated, boldly. "Fact is, he is a man we've known for a great many years. He--er--he used to be butler in my grandfather's house in Philadelphia, and--er--and I was there a great deal of the time as a boy, and Grimmins and I were great friends. When my grandfather died Grimmins disappeared, and until last month I never heard a word of him, and then he wrote to me stating that he was out of work and poor as a fifty-cent table- d'hote dinner, and would like employment at nominal wages if he