"If I had my way," said Mr Robbins, "I'd give orders to the poliss, and
every one of 'em should be took up. They're so fond of turning handles
that I'd put 'em on the crank. I'd make 'em grind."
"You have not the taste for the music, M'sieur Robbins," said
Mademoiselle Justine, looking up from her plate at dinner in the
servants' hall, and then glancing side wise at Dolly Preen, who was
cutting her waxy potato up very small and soaking it in gravy, as she
bent down so as not to show her burning face.
"Haven't I, ma'amselle? P'r'aps not; but I had a brother who could
a'most make a fiddle speak. I don't call organs music, and I object on
principle to a set of lazy ronies being encouraged about our house."
Dolly's face grew more scarlet, and Mademoiselle Justine's mouth more
tight as a couple of curious little curves played about the corners of
her lips.
"Well, all I can say," said the cook, "is, that he's a very handsome
man."
"Handsome!" exclaimed Robbins, "I don't call a man handsome as can't
shave, and never cuts his greasy hair. Handsome! Yah, a low,
macaroni-eating, lazy rony, that's what he is. There's heaps of 'em
always walking about outside the furren church doors, I've seen 'em
myself."
"But some of 'em's exiles, Mr Robbins," said the stout, amiable-looking
cook. "I have 'eared as some on 'em's princes in disguise."
"My faith!" ejaculated Mademoiselle Justine, sardonically.
"Yes, ma'amselle, I ayve," said cook, defiantly, "I don't mean Frenchy
exiles, with their coats buttoned up to their chins in Leicester Square,
because they ain't got no washing to put out, but Hightalian exiles."
"Bah!" ejaculated Mademoiselle Justine, "that for you! What know you?"
and she snapped her fingers.
"Pr'aps a deal more than some people thinks, and I don't like to sit
still and hear poor people sneered at because they are reduced to
music."
"But I don't call that music," said Robbins, contemptuously.
"Don't you, Mr Robbins?--then I do."
At this stage of the proceedings Dolly could bear her feelings no more,
but got up and left the hall to ascend the back stairs to her own room,
and sit down in a corner, and cover her face with her natty apron.
"Pore gell," exclaimed the cook. "It's too bad."
"What is too bad, Madame Downes?" said Mademoiselle Framboise.
"To go on like that before the pore thing. She can't help it."
"Bah!" ejaculated the French maid, "it is disgust. An organ man! The
child is _affreusement stupide_."
"I have a heart of my own," sighed the cook.
"Yais, but you do not go to throw it to a man like that, Madame Downes."
"Hear, hear!" said the butler, and there was a chorus of approval.
"I say it is disgust--disgrace," continued Mademoiselle Justine. "The
girl is mad, and should be sent home to the _bon_ papa down in the
country."
"I have a heart of my own," said Mrs Downes again. "Ah, you needn't
laugh, Mary Ann. Some people likes footmen next door."