“She sent me over to get you,” he went on. He uttered the word “She”
with such profound awe that I knew he could mean none other than Mrs.
Effie. It was most extraordinary, but I dare say only what was to have
been expected from persons of this sort. In any good-class club or
among gentlemen at large it is customary to allow one at least
twenty-four hours for the payment of one’s gambling debts. Yet there I
was being collected by the winner at so early an hour as half-after
seven. If I had been a five-pound note instead of myself, I fancy it
would have been quite the same. These Americans would most indecently
have sent for their winnings before the Honourable George had
awakened. One would have thought they had expected him to refuse
payment of me after losing me the night before. How little they seemed
to realize that we were both intending to be dead sportsmen.
“Very good, sir,” I said, “but I trust I may be allowed to brew the
Honourable George his tea before leaving? I’d hardly like to trust to
him alone with it, sir.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, so respectfully that it gave me an odd feeling.
“Take your time, Mr. Ruggles. I don’t know as I am in any hurry on my
own account. It’s only account of Her.”
I trust it will be remembered that in reporting this person’s speeches
I am making an earnest effort to set them down word for word in all
their terrific peculiarities. I mean to say, I would not be held
accountable for his phrasing, and if I corrected his speech, as of
course the tendency is, our identities might become confused. I hope
this will be understood when I report him as saying things in ways one
doesn’t word them. I mean to say that it should not be thought that I
would say them in this way if it chanced that I were saying the same
things in my proper person. I fancy this should now be plain.
“Very well, sir,” I said.
“If it was me,” he went on, “I wouldn’t want you a little bit. But
it’s Her. She’s got her mind made up to do the right thing and have us
all be somebody, and when she makes her mind up----” He hesitated and
studied the ceiling for some seconds. “Believe me,” he continued,
“Mrs. Effie is some wildcat!”
“Yes, sir--some wildcat,” I repeated.
“Believe _me_, Bill,” he said again, quaintly addressing me by a
name not my own--“believe me, she’d fight a rattlesnake and give it
the first two bites.”
Again let it be recalled that I put down this extraordinary speech
exactly as I heard it. I thought to detect in it that grotesque
exaggeration with which the Americans so distressingly embellish their
humour. I mean to say, it could hardly have been meant in all
seriousness. So far as my researches have extended, the rattlesnake is
an invariably poisonous reptile. Fancy giving one so downright an
advantage as the first two bites, or even one bite, although I believe
the thing does not in fact bite at all, but does one down with its
forked tongue, of which there is an excellent drawing in my little
volume, “Inquire Within; 1,000 Useful Facts.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, somewhat at a loss; “quite so, sir!”
“I just thought I’d wise you up beforehand.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, for his intention beneath the weird jargon
was somehow benevolent. “And if you’ll be good enough to wait until I
have taken tea to the Honourable George----”
“How is the Judge this morning?” he broke in.
“The Judge, sir?” I was at a loss, until he gestured toward the room
of the Honourable George.
“The Judge, yes. Ain’t he a justice of the peace or something?”
“But no, sir; not at all, sir.”
“Then what do you call him ‘Honourable’ for, if he ain’t a judge or
something?”
“Well, sir, it’s done, sir,” I explained, but I fear he was unable to
catch my meaning, for a moment later (the Honourable George, hearing
our voices, had thrown a boot smartly against the door) he was
addressing him as “Judge” and thereafter continued to do so, nor did
the Honourable George seem to make any moment of being thus miscalled.
I served the Ceylon tea, together with biscuits and marmalade, the
while our caller chatted nervously. He had, it appeared, procured his
own breakfast while on his way to us.
“I got to have my ham and eggs of a morning,” he confided. “But she
won’t let me have anything at that hotel but a continental breakfast,
which is nothing but coffee and toast and some of that there sauce
you’re eating. She says when I’m on the continent I got to eat a
continental breakfast, because that’s the smart thing to do, and not
stuff myself like I was on the ranch; but I got that game beat both
ways from the jack. I duck out every morning before she’s up. I found
a place where you can get regular ham and eggs.”
“Regular ham and eggs?” murmured the Honourable George.
“French ham and eggs is a joke. They put a slice of boiled ham in a
little dish, slosh a couple of eggs on it, and tuck the dish into the
oven a few minutes. Say, they won’t ever believe that back in Red Gap
when I tell it. But I found this here little place where they do it
right, account of Americans having made trouble so much over the other
way. But, mind you, don’t let on to her,” he warned me suddenly.
“Certainly not, sir,” I said. “Trust me to be discreet, sir.”
“All right, then. Maybe we’ll get on better than what I thought we
would. I was looking for trouble with you, the way she’s been talking
about what you’d do for me.”
“I trust matters will be pleasant, sir,” I replied.
“I can be pushed just so far,” he curiously warned me, “and no
farther--not by any man that wears hair.”
“Yes, sir,” I said again, wondering what the wearing of hair might
mean to this process of pushing him, and feeling rather absurdly glad
that my own face is smoothly shaven.
“You’ll find Ruggles fairish enough after you’ve got used to his
ways,” put in the Honourable George.
“All right, Judge; and remember it wasn’t my doings,” said my new
employer, rising and pulling down to his ears his fearful bowler hat.
“And now we better report to her before she does a hot-foot over here.
You can pack your grip later in the day,” he added to me.
“Pack my grip--yes, sir,” I said numbly, for I was on the tick of
leaving the Honourable George helpless in bed. In a voice that I fear
was broken I spoke of clothes for the day’s wear which I had laid out
for him the night before. He waved a hand bravely at us and sank back
into his pillow as my new employer led me forth. There had been barely
a glance between us to betoken the dreadfulness of the moment.
At our door I was pleased to note that a taximetre cab awaited us. I
had acutely dreaded a walk through the streets, even of Paris, with my
new employer garbed as he was. The blue satin cravat of itself would
have been bound to insure us more attention than one would care for.
I fear we were both somewhat moody during the short ride. Each of us
seemed to have matters of weight to reflect upon. Only upon reaching
our destination did my companion brighten a bit. For a fare of five
francs forty centimes he gave the driver a ten-franc piece and waited
for no change.
“I always get around them that way,” he said with an expression of the
brightest cunning. “She used to have the laugh on me because I got so
much counterfeit money handed to me. Now I don’t take any change at
all.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Quite right, sir.”
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” he added as we ascended to
the Floud’s drawing-room, though why his mind should have flown to
this brutal sport, if it be a sport, was quite beyond me. At the door
he paused and hissed at me: “Remember, no matter what she says, if you
treat me white I’ll treat you white.” And before I could frame any
suitable response to this puzzling announcement he had opened the door
and pushed me in, almost before I could remove my cap.
Seated at the table over coffee and rolls was Mrs. Effie. Her face
brightened as she saw me, then froze to disapproval as her glance
rested upon him I was to know as Cousin Egbert. I saw her capable
mouth set in a straight line of determination.
“You did your very worst, didn’t you?” she began. “But sit down and
eat your breakfast. He’ll soon change _that_.” She turned to me.
“Now, Ruggles, I hope you understand the situation, and I’m sure I can
trust you to take no nonsense from him. You see plainly what you’ve
got to do. I let him dress to suit himself this morning, so that you
could know the worst at once. Take a good look at him--shoes, coat,
hat--that dreadful cravat!”
“I call this a right pretty necktie,” mumbled her victim over a crust
of toast. She had poured coffee for him.
“You hear that?” she asked me. I bowed sympathetically.
“What does he look like?” she insisted. “Just tell him for his own
good, please.”
But this I could not do. True enough, during our short ride he had
been reminding me of one of a pair of cross-talk comedians I had once
seen in a music-hall. This, of course, was not a thing one could say.
“I dare say, Madam, he could be smartened up a bit. If I might take
him to some good-class shop----”
“And burn the things he’s got on----” she broke in.
“Not this here necktie,” interrupted Cousin Egbert rather stubbornly.
“It was give to me by Jeff Tuttle’s littlest girl last Christmas; and
this here Prince Albert coat--what’s the matter of it, I’d like to
know? It come right from the One Price Clothing Store at Red Gap, and
it’s plenty good to go to funerals in----”
“And then to a barber-shop with him,” went on Mrs. Effie, who had paid
no heed to his outburst. “Get him done right for once.”
Her relative continued to nibble nervously at a bit of toast.
“I’ve done something with him myself,” she said, watching him
narrowly. “At first he insisted on having the whole bill-of-fare for
breakfast, but I put my foot down, and now he’s satisfied with the
continental breakfast. That goes to show he has something in him, if
we can only bring it out.”
“Something in him, indeed, yes, Madam!” I assented, and Cousin Egbert,
turning to me, winked heavily.
“I want him to look like some one,” she resumed, “and I think you’re
the man can make him if you’re firm with him; but you’ll have to be
firm, because he’s full of tricks. And if he starts any rough stuff,
just come to me.”
“Quite so, Madam,” I said, but I felt I was blushing with shame at
hearing one of my own sex so slanged by a woman. That sort of thing
would never do with us. And yet there was something about this
woman--something weirdly authoritative. She showed rather well in the
morning light, her gray eyes crackling as she talked. She was wearing
a most elaborate peignoir, and of course she should not have worn the
diamonds; it seemed almost too much like the morning hour of a stage
favourite; but still one felt that when she talked one would do well
to listen.
Hereupon Cousin Egbert startled me once more.
“Won’t you set up and have something with us, Mr. Ruggles?” he asked me.
I looked away, affecting not to have heard, and could feel Mrs. Effie
scowling at him. He coughed into his cup and sprayed coffee well over
himself. His intention had been obvious in the main, though exactly
what he had meant by “setting up” I couldn’t fancy--as if I had been a
performing poodle!
The moment’s embarrassment was well covered by Mrs. Effie, who again
renewed her instructions, and from an escritoire brought me a sheaf of
the pretentiously printed sheets which the French use in place of our
banknotes.
“You will spare no expense,” she directed, “and don’t let me see him
again until he looks like some one. Try to have him back here by five.
Some very smart friends of ours are coming for tea.”
“I won’t drink tea at that outlandish hour for any one,” said Cousin
Egbert rather snappishly.
“You will at least refuse it like a man of the world, I hope,” she
replied icily, and he drooped submissive once more. “You see?” she
added to me.
“Quite so, Madam,” I said, and resolved to be firm and thorough with
Cousin Egbert. In a way I was put upon my mettle. I swore to make him
look like some one. Moreover, I now saw that his half-veiled threats
of rebellion to me had been pure swank. I had in turn but to threaten
to report him to this woman and he would be as clay in my hands.
I presently had him tucked into a closed taxicab, half-heartedly
muttering expostulations and protests to which I paid not the least
heed. During my strolls I had observed in what would have been Regent
Street at home a rather good-class shop with an English name, and to
this I now proceeded with my charge. I am afraid I rather hustled him
across the pavement and into the shop, not knowing what tricks he
might be up to, and not until he was well to the back did I attempt to
explain myself to the shop-walker who had followed us. To him I then
gave details of my charge’s escape from a burning hotel the previous
night, which accounted for his extraordinary garb of the moment, he
having been obliged to accept the loan of garments that neither fitted
him nor harmonized with one another. I mean to say, I did not care to
have the chap suspect we would don tan boots, a frock-coat, and bowler
hat except under the most tremendous compulsion.
Cousin Egbert stared at me open mouthed during this recital, but the
shop-walker was only too readily convinced, as indeed who would not
have been, and called an intelligent assistant to relieve our
distress. With his help I swiftly selected an outfit that was not half
bad for ready-to-wear garments. There was a black morning-coat, snug
at the waist, moderately broad at the shoulders, closing with two
buttons, its skirt sharply cut away from the lower button and reaching
to the bend of the knee. The lapels were, of course, soft-rolled and
joined the collar with a triangular notch. It is a coat of immense
character when properly worn, and I was delighted to observe in the
trying on that Cousin Egbert filled it rather smartly. Moreover, he
submitted more meekly than I had hoped. The trousers I selected were
of gray cloth, faintly striped, the waistcoat being of the same
material as the coat, relieved at the neck-opening by an edging of
white.
With the boots I had rather more trouble, as he refused to wear the
patent leathers that I selected, together with the pearl gray spats,
until I grimly requested the telephone assistant to put me through to
the hotel, desiring to speak to Mrs. Senator Floud. This brought him
around, although muttering, and I had less trouble with shirts,
collars, and cravats. I chose a shirt of white piqué, a wing collar
with small, square-cornered tabs, and a pearl ascot.
Then in a cabinet I superintended Cousin Egbert’s change of raiment.
We clashed again in the matter of sock-suspenders, which I was
astounded to observe he did not possess. He insisted that he had never
worn them--garters he called them--and never would if he were shot for
it, so I decided to be content with what I had already gained.
By dint of urging and threatening I at length achieved my ground-work
and was more than a little pleased with my effect, as was the
shop-assistant, after I had tied the pearl ascot and adjusted a quiet
tie-pin of my own choosing.
“Now I hope you’re satisfied!” growled my charge, seizing his bowler
hat and edging off.
“By no means,” I said coldly. “The hat, if you please, sir.”
He gave it up rebelliously, and I had again to threaten him with the
telephone before he would submit to a top-hat with a moderate bell and
broad brim. Surveying this in the glass, however, he became
perceptibly reconciled. It was plain that he rather fancied it, though
as yet he wore it consciously and would turn his head slowly and
painfully, as if his neck were stiffened.
Having chosen the proper gloves, I was, I repeat, more than pleased
with this severely simple scheme of black, white, and gray. I felt I
had been wise to resist any tendency to colour, even to the most
delicate of pastel tints. My last selection was a smartish Malacca
stick, the ideal stick for town wear, which I thrust into the
defenceless hands of my client.
“And now, sir,” I said firmly, “it is but a step to a barber’s stop
where English is spoken.” And ruefully he accompanied me. I dare say
that by that time he had discovered that I was not to be trifled with,
for during his hour in the barber’s chair he did not once rebel
openly. Only at times would he roll his eyes to mine in dumb appeal.
There was in them something of the utter confiding helplessness I had
noted in the eyes of an old setter at Chaynes-Wotten when I had been
called upon to assist the undergardener in chloroforming him. I mean
to say, the dog had jolly well known something terrible was being done
to him, yet his eyes seemed to say he knew it must be all for the best
and that he trusted us. It was this look I caught as I gave directions
about the trimming of the hair, and especially when I directed that
something radical should be done to the long, grayish moustache that
fell to either side of his chin in the form of a horseshoe. I myself
was puzzled by this difficulty, but the barber solved it rather
neatly, I thought, after a whispered consultation with me. He snipped
a bit off each end and then stoutly waxed the whole affair until the
ends stood stiffly out with distinct military implications. I shall
never forget, and indeed I was not a little touched by the look of
quivering anguish in the eyes of my client when he first beheld this
novel effect. And yet when we were once more in the street I could not
but admit that the change was worth all that it had cost him in
suffering. Strangely, he now looked like some one, especially after I
had persuaded him to a carnation for his buttonhole. I cannot say that
his carriage was all that it should have been, and he was still
conscious of his smart attire, but I nevertheless felt a distinct
thrill of pride in my own work, and was eager to reveal him to Mrs.
Effie in his new guise.
But first he would have luncheon--dinner he called it--and I was not
averse to this, for I had put in a long and trying morning. I went
with him to the little restaurant where Americans had made so much
trouble about ham and eggs, and there he insisted that I should join
him in chops and potatoes and ale. I thought it only proper then to
point out to him that there was certain differences in our walks of
life which should be more or less denoted by his manner of addressing
me. Among other things he should not address me as Mr. Ruggles, nor
was it customary for a valet to eat at the same table with his master.
He seemed much interested in these distinctions and thereupon
addressed me as “Colonel,” which was of course quite absurd, but this
I could not make him see. Thereafter, I may say, that he called me
impartially either “Colonel” or “Bill.” It was a situation that I had
never before been obliged to meet, and I found it trying in the
extreme. He was a chap who seemed ready to pal up with any one, and I
could not but recall the strange assertion I had so often heard that
in America one never knows who is one’s superior. Fancy that! It would
never do with us. I could only determine to be on my guard.
Our luncheon done, he consented to accompany me to the hotel of the
Honourable George, whence I wished to remove my belongings. I should
have preferred to go alone, but I was too fearful of what he might do
to himself or his clothes in my absence.
We found the Honourable George still in bed, as I had feared. He had,
it seemed, been unable to discover his collar studs, which, though I
had placed them in a fresh shirt for him, he had carelessly covered
with a blanket. Begging Cousin Egbert to be seated in my room, I did a
few of the more obvious things required by my late master.
“You’d leave me here like a rat in a trap,” he said reproachfully,
which I thought almost quite a little unjust. I mean to say, it had
all been his own doing, he having lost me in the game of drawing
poker, so why should he row me about it now? I silently laid out the
shirt once more.
“You might have told me where I’m to find my brown tweeds and the body
linen.”
Again he was addressing me as if I had voluntarily left him without
notice, but I observed that he was still mildly speckled from the
night before, so I handed him the fruit-lozenges, and went to pack my
own box. Cousin Egbert I found sitting as I had left him, on the edge
of a chair, carefully holding his hat, stick, and gloves, and staring
into the wall. He had promised me faithfully not to fumble with his
cravat, and evidently he had not once stirred. I packed my box
swiftly--my “grip,” as he called it--and we were presently off once
more, without another sight of the Honourable George, who was to join
us at tea. I could hear him moving about, using rather ultra-frightful
language, but I lacked heart for further speech with him at the
moment.
An hour later, in the Floud drawing-room, I had the supreme
satisfaction of displaying to Mrs. Effie the happy changes I had been
able to effect in my charge. Posing him, I knocked at the door of her
chamber. She came at once and drew a long breath as she surveyed him,
from varnished boots, spats, and coat to top-hat, which he still wore.
He leaned rather well on his stick, the hand to his hip, the elbow
out, while the other hand lightly held his gloves. A moment she
looked, then gave a low cry of wonder and delight, so that I felt
repaid for my trouble. Indeed, as she faced me to thank me I could see
that her eyes were dimmed.
“Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Now he looks like some one!” And I
distinctly perceived that only just in time did she repress an impulse
to grasp me by the hand. Under the circumstances I am not sure that I
wouldn’t have overlooked the lapse had she yielded to it. “Wonderful!”
she said again.
{Illustration: “WONDERFUL! NOW HE LOOKS LIKE SOME ONE”}
Hereupon Cousin Egbert, much embarrassed, leaned his stick against the
wall; the stick fell, and in reaching down for it his hat fell, and in
reaching for that he dropped his gloves; but I soon restored him to
order and he was safely seated where he might be studied in further
detail, especially as to his moustaches, which I had considered rather
the supreme touch.
“He looks exactly like some well-known clubman,” exclaimed Mrs. Effie.
Her relative growled as if he were quite ready to savage her.
“Like a man about town,” she murmured. “Who would have thought he had
it in him until you brought it out?” I knew then that we two should
understand each other.
The slight tension was here relieved by two of the hotel servants who
brought tea things. At a nod from Mrs. Effie I directed the laying out
of these.
At that moment came the other Floud, he of the eyebrows, and a cousin
cub called Elmer, who, I understood, studied art. I became aware that
they were both suddenly engaged and silenced by the sight of Cousin
Egbert. I caught their amazed stares, and then terrifically they broke
into gales of laughter. The cub threw himself on a couch, waving his
feet in the air, and holding his middle as if he’d suffered a sudden
acute dyspepsia, while the elder threw his head back and shrieked
hysterically. Cousin Egbert merely glared at them and, endeavouring
to stroke his moustache, succeeded in unwaxing one side of it so that
it once more hung limply down his chin, whereat they renewed their
boorishness. The elder Floud was now quite dangerously purple, and the
cub on the couch was shrieking: “No matter how dark the clouds, remember
she is still your stepmother,” or words to some such silly effect as
that. How it might have ended I hardly dare conjecture--perhaps Cousin
Egbert would presently have roughed them--but a knock sounded, and it
became my duty to open our door upon other guests, women mostly;
Americans in Paris; that sort of thing.
I served the tea amid their babble. The Honourable George was shown up
a bit later, having done to himself quite all I thought he might in
the matter of dress. In spite of serious discrepancies in his attire,
however, I saw that Mrs. Effie meant to lionize him tremendously. With
vast ceremony he was presented to her guests--the Honourable George
Augustus Vane-Basingwell, brother of his lordship the Earl of
Brinstead. The women fluttered about him rather, though he behaved
moodily, and at the first opportunity fell to the tea and cakes quite
wholeheartedly.
In spite of my aversion to the American wilderness, I felt a bit of
professional pride in reflecting that my first day in this new service
was about to end so auspiciously. Yet even in that moment, being as
yet unfamiliar with the room’s lesser furniture, I stumbled slightly
against a hassock hid from me by the tray I carried. A cup of tea was
lost, though my recovery was quick. Too late I observed that the
hitherto self-effacing Cousin Egbert was in range of my clumsiness.
“There goes tea all over my new pants!” he said in a high, pained
voice.
“Sorry, indeed, sir,” said I, a ready napkin in hand. “Let me dry it,
sir!”
“Yes, sir, I fancy quite so, sir,” said he.
I most truly would have liked to shake him smartly for this. I saw
that my work was cut out for me among these Americans, from whom at
their best one expects so little.