This was one reason, he argued, why the question of domestic aid in America was all at sixes and sevens. It was not considered humanly. It was more than a question of supply and demand; it was one of national prejudice. A rich man could have a French chef and an English butler, and as many strapping indoor men—some of them much better fitted for manual labor—as he liked, and find it a social glory; while a family of moderate means were obliged to pay high wages to crude incompetent women from the darkest backwaters of European life, just because they were women.
“And the women’s mostly to blyme,” he reasoned. “They suffers—nobody knows what they suffers better nor me—just because they ain’t got the spunk to do anything but suffer. They’ve got it all in their 97 own ’ands, and they never learn. Men is slow to learn; but women don’t ’ardly ever learn at all.”
Letty was thinking of herself, as she glanced up at this fount of wisdom with the question:
“Don’t none of ’em?”
Having apparently weighed this already he had his answer. “None that’s been drilled a little bit before ’and. Once let woman feel as so and so is the custom, and for ’er that custom, whether good or bad, is there to stye. They sye that chyngin’ ’er mind is a woman’s privilege; but the woman that chynged ’er mind about a custom is one I never met yet.”
She took him as seriously as he took himself.
“Don’t you like women, mister—I mean, Steptoe?”
He pondered before replying. “I don’t know as I could sye. I’ve never ’ad a chance to see much of women except in ’ousework, where they’re out of their element and tyken at a disadvantage. I don’t like none I’ve ever run into there, because none of ’em never was no sport.”
The inquiry in her golden eyes led him a little further.
“No one ain’t a sport what sighs and groans over their job, and don’t do it cheerful like. No one ain’t a sport what undertykes a job and ain’t proud of it. If a woman will go into ’ousework let ’er do it honorable. If she chooses to be a servant let ’er be a servant, and not be ashymed to sye she is one. So if madam arsks me if I like ’em I ’ave to confess I don’t, because as far as I see women I mostly ’ear ’em complyne.”