BACHELOR DAYS
THE BUTTER
"You mustn't think I am afraid of my housekeeper. Not at all. I frequently meet her on the stairs, and give her some such order as "I think—if you don't mind—I might have breakfast just a little later—er, yes, about eight o'clock, yes, thank you." Or I ring the bell and say, "I—I—want-my-boots." We both recognise that it is mine to command and hers to obey. But in the matter of the butter I have let things slide, until the position is rapidly becoming an untenable one. Yet I doubt if a man of imagination and feeling could have acted otherwise, given the initial error. However, you shall hear.
There are two sorts of butter, salt and fresh. Now, nobody is so fond of butter as I am; but butter (as I have often told everybody) isn't butter at all unless it is salt. The other kind is merely an inferior vaseline—the sort of thing you put on the axles of locomotives. Imagine, then, my disgust, when I took my first breakfast in these rooms eleven months ago, to find that the housekeeper had provided me with a large lump of vaseline!
I hate waste in small things. Take care of the little extravagances, I say, and the big ones will take care of themselves. My first thought on viewing this pat of butter was, "It is difficult, but I will eat it." My second, "But I must tell the housekeeper to get salt butter next time."
An ordinary-minded person would have stopped there. I went one further. My third thought was this: "Housekeepers are forgetful creatures. If I tell her now, she will never remember. Obviously I had better wait until this pound is just finished and she is about to get in some more. Then will be the time to speak." So I waited; and it was here that I made my mistake. For it turned out that it was I who was the forgetful creature. And on the fifteenth day I got up to find another large pound of vaseline on my table. The next fortnight went by slowly. I kept my eye on every day, waiting for the moment to come when I could say to the housekeeper, "You will be getting me in some more butter this morning. Would you get salt, as I don't much like the other?" Wednesday came, and there was just enough left for two days. I would speak on the morrow.
But, alas! on the morrow there was another new pound waiting. I had evidently misjudged the amount.
I forget what happened after that. I fancy I must have been very busy, so that the question of butter escaped me altogether. Sometimes, too, I would go away for a few days and the old butter would be thrown away and the new butter bought, at a time when I had no opportunity of defending myself. However it was, there came a time when I had been three months in my rooms, and was still eating fresh butter; contentedly, to all appearances—in the greatest anguish of soul, as it happened. And at the end of another month I said: "Now, then, I really must do something about this."
But what could I do? After eating fresh butter for four months without protest I couldn't possibly tell the housekeeper that I didn't like it, and would she get salt in future. That would be too absurd. Fancy taking four months to discover a little thing like that! Nor could I pretend that, though I used to adore fresh butter, I had now grown tired of it. I hate instability of character, and I could not lend myself to any such fickleness. I put it to you that either of these courses would have shown deplorable weakness. No, an explanation with the housekeeper was by that time impossible; and if anything was to be done I must do it on my own responsibility. What about buying a pound of salt butter myself, and feeding on it in secret? True, I should have to get rid of a certain portion of fresh every day, but...
I don't know if you have ever tried to get rid of a certain portion of fresh butter every day, when you are living in a flat at the very top of chambers in London. Drop it out of the window once or twice, and it is an accident. Three times, and it is a coincidence. Four times, and the policeman on duty begins to think that there is more in it (if I may say so) than meets the eye.... But what about the fire, you will ask. Ah, yes; but I could foresee a day when there would be no fire. One has to look ahead.
Besides, as I said, I hate waste. As any cook will tell you, the whole art of housekeeping can be summed up in three words—Watch the butter.
More months passed and more pats of vaseline. Every day made an explanation more hopeless. I had thoughts at one time of an anonymous letter. Something in this style:
"MADAM,—One who is your friend says beware of vaseline. All is discovered. Fly before it is too late. What is it makes the sea so salt? NaCl. Sodium Chloride. THE BLACK HAND"
That would give her the impression, at any rate, that there were two kinds of butter. Confound it all, by what right did she assume without asking that I had a preference for fresh?
I have now been in my rooms nearly a year. Something must be done soon. My breakfasts are becoming a farce. Meals which I used to enjoy I now face as an ordeal. Is there to be no hope for me in the future?
Well, there is a chance? I shall have to wait until July; but with something definite in view I am content to wait.
In July I hope to go to Switzerland for a month. Two days before returning home I shall write to my housekeeper. Having announced the day of my return, and given one or two instructions, I shall refer briefly to the pleasant holiday which I have been enjoying. I shall remark perhaps on the grandeur of the mountains and the smiling beauty of the valleys, I may mention the area in square miles of the country....
And I shall dwell upon the habits of the native.
"... They live (I shall write) in extraordinary simplicity, chiefly upon the products of their farms. Their butter is the most delightful I have ever tried. It is a little salt to the taste, but after four weeks of it I begin to feel that I shall never be able to do without salt butter again! No doubt, as made in London it would be different from this, but I really think I must give it a trial. So when you are ordering the things I mentioned for me, will you ask for salt butter...."
And if that fails there remains only the one consolation. In three years my lease is up. I shall take a new flat somewhere, and on the very first day I shall have a word with the new housekeeper.
"By the way," I shall say, "about the butter...."