I had long believed that all was not right with my hat. I could prove
nothing, but I had no doubt in my own mind that the girl took liberties
with it. It is very easy to brush a silk hat the wrong way, for
instance, but silk hats do not brush themselves the wrong way; if it is
done, some one must have done it. Morning after morning I found marks
on my hat which I could not account for. Well, I said nothing, but I
made up my mind to keep my eyes open. It was not only the injury to the
hat--it was the impertinence to myself that affected me.
One Saturday afternoon, while I was at home, a costermonger came to the
door with walnuts. The girl answered the bell, and presently I saw the
coster and his cart go past the dining-room window. I don't know why it
was, or how it was, but a suspicion came over me. I stepped sharply to
the door, and looked out into the passage. There was no one there. The
front door was open, and the kitchen door was open, and in a position
between the two, against the umbrella-stand, was--something worse than
ever I had expected.
I picked that hat up just as it was, with the walnuts inside it, and
placed it on the dining-room table. Then I called to Eliza to come
down-stairs.
"What is it?" she asked, as she entered the dining-room.
I pointed to the hat. "This kind of thing," I said, "has been going on
for years!"
"Oh, do talk sense!" she said. "What do you mean?"
"Sense!" I said. "You ask me to talk sense, when I find my own hat
standing on the floor in the hall, and used as a--a receptacle for
walnuts!"
She smiled. "I can explain all that," she said.
"I've no doubt you can. I'm sick to death of explanations. I give ten
or eleven shillings for a hat, and find it ruined. I know those
explanations. You told the girl to buy the walnuts, and she had got
nothing else to put them in, and the hat was handy; but if you think I
take that as an excuse, you make a mistake."
"I wasn't going to say that at all."
"Or else you'll tell me that you can paste in a piece of white paper,
so that the stains on the lining won't show. Explanations, indeed!"
"And I wasn't going to say that, either."
"I don't care what you were going to say. I won't hear it. There's no
explanation possible. For once I mean to take a strong line. You see
that hat? I shall never wear it again!"
"I know that."
"No one shall wear it! I don't care for the expense! If you choose to
let that servant-girl ruin my hat, then that hat shall be ruined, and
no mistake about it!"
I picked the hat up, and gave it one sound, savage kick. My foot went
through it, and the walnuts flew all over the room. At the same moment
I heard from the drawing-room a faint tink-tink-tink on the piano.
[Illustration: "_I picked the hat up, and gave it one sound, savage
kick._"]
"Yes," said Eliza. "That's the piano-tuner. He came at the same time as
the walnut-man, and bought those walnuts. And he put them in his hat.
_His_ hat, mind you, not _your_ hat. Your hat's hanging up in the
usual place. You might have seen it if you'd looked. Only you're----"
"Eliza," I said, "you need say no more. If that is so, the servant-girl
is much less to blame than I had supposed. I have to go out now, but
perhaps you'd drop into the drawing-room and explain to the tuner that
there's been some slight misunderstanding with his hat. And, I say, a
glass of beer and two shillings is as much as you need offer."