She went on very well at first, as they all do, indeed, and came with her hair nicely brushed, and her face and hands and apron beautifully clean, for two or three mornings; and then, all of a sudden, a change came o’er the spirit of my dream, as the poet says, and anybody that had seen her look so tidy before, would never have known her again in the grubby state she appeared; for she used to come with her hair just the same as when she got up in the morning, and all frayed out like so much red worsted, and looking as coarse and fuzzy as cocoa-nut fibre—and with the hooks and eyes nearly all off her gown behind—and her nasty rusty black petticoat hanging down below her frock, all caked over with old mud—and her boots burst out, and laced up three holes at a time, just to save herself trouble, with the ends of the laces dangling about her heels, and allowed to drag in the wet, till they really looked for all the world like a bit of string—whilst her apron, I declare, was as dirty as a coal-heaver’s stockings at the end of the week.
At last I found out who and what my lady was. For one day, after I had spoken to her about the disgraceful state of her clothing, and had told her that she really must get her boots mended if she wished to stop in my service, lo, and behold! my little monkey appeared the next day in a pair of old, dirty, worn-out, white satin shoes. And when I asked her what on earth could possess her to think of ever coming into my house in such disgraceful things as she had got on her feet, I declare, if she didn’t tell me that they were the shoes that she wore when she used to dance, as “La Petite Saqui,” on the tight-rope at the Queen’s Theatre, in Tottenham-court-road, until she grew too stout for the business.
I uttered a faint scream at the idea of my sweet cherub being intrusted to the care of such a creature, and asked her what in the world could have induced her to take to such an extraordinary means of getting a living? But she merely said that her father had a large family, and he had apprenticed her at a very early age to her uncle, who, together with her cousin, and a young gentleman of the name of Biler, were the original Bedouin Brothers, and who, she told me, were declared by the public press and her father to be the first posture-masters of the day.
I could scarcely restrain my feelings on hearing this, for, of course, after what I had heard, I imagined that I should go up suddenly into the nursery some fine morning, and catch “La Petite Saqui” doing with my little daughter the same as I had seen Mr. Risley do with his little boy—viz., lying down on her back, tossing up the little pet with the soles of her feet, and catching it again on the palms of her hand. However, I restrained my feelings, and determined to go round that very afternoon to the oilman, and give it him well for sending such a creature to me, with the character he did, and try if I could hear of any other girl in the neighbourhood.
Accordingly, as soon as my little angel of a Kate was fast asleep, I put on my bonnet, and stepped out. To make sure that neither of the girls could be up to any of their tricks in my absence, I took the key of the street-door, and locked them both in.
I couldn’t have been gone above half an hour, and when I got home again, I opened the door with as little noise as I could, in the hopes of seeing what the minxes had been doing in my absence. I had scarcely got half way down the passage, before—goodness gracious me!—if I didn’t see “La Petite Saqui,” as the young monkey called itself, out in the garden, with my longest clothes-pole in her hand, figuring on a tight-rope, which she had made by tying my clothes line from the railings to the garden-seat.
Yes, there she was, now springing up in the air, and now coming down, and sitting on the rope for a minute, and then bounding up again, just like an Indian-rubber ball, and then coming down again, and balancing herself on one leg, whilst she held the other out for a few seconds; and then running along the line towards the house as quick as she could put one foot over the other, and stopping suddenly, with a graceful curtsy, in the first position, just as I made my appearance at the back door. And when I went out into the garden, bless us and save us! if the place wasn’t just like a fair, with all the servants round about stretching their necks out of the windows or poking their noses over the garden walls, and that fool of a maid-of-all-work of an Emma of mine, standing by looking on, with a ball of whiting in her hand, and her mouth wide open with wonder.
They no sooner saw me, than down jumped that fat lump of goods, “La Petite Saqui,” and off she scampered, and I after her, all round the garden, with my parasol, trying to give it her well, amidst roars of laughter from all the servants looking on.
As for my tight-rope dancer, I wasn’t long in getting her out of the house, for directly I caught her, I took her by the scruff of the neck, and, bundling her into the street, threw her bonnet out after her.
Then I went down-stairs, and told that stupid thing of an Emma, that if ever I caught her idling her time away, instead of minding her work—which, I was sure, was quite enough for her to do, and if it wasn’t, I could easily find her some more—I’d serve her just in the same way, and not give her a character into the bargain. For I felt that if a stop were not put to such goings-on, at their very commencement, that really there would be no saying to what lengths such a simpleton as Emma might not go.