Fancy-Maria was her adoring, but unable lieutenant. She tried hard, and breathed very hard; yet her fervour led to frequent disaster. It was the management of trays that tested her most severely. If she rose with one from the depths, she invariably struck it against the lintel of the parlour door, and shot everything from it into the hall. If she descended with one from the heights, she tripped at the corner where the stairs turned, and tobogganed down on it the rest of the way, preceded by an avalanche of cups and dishes. She always did her best to keep the contents steady with her thumbs; but her thumbs, though large, were not universal, and were generally occupied in holding secure the bread and butter, for choice, on one side, and the fried fish on the other. Some people make a point of leaving a little piece on each dish “for manners.” We always cut out and left Fancy-Maria’s thumb-marks for that mysterious retainer of our childhood.
It was not long before Uncle Jenico questioned Mrs. Puddephatt about the earthquake. She turned up her nose at the first mention of it, and tittered the shrillest sarcasm.
“Lork, sir!” she said, “you’ve never abin took hin by that stuff! And you a Londoner!”
“Stuff, is it?” said Uncle Jenico, genially. “And why, now?”
She cocked her head and folded her arms across her chest, like a tricksy saint in an old woodcut.
“I wouldn’t a’ believed it of you,” she said; “no, not if you’d gone and took me by the ears and battered my ’ed on the table.”
“But, my good woman,” began my uncle, “Mr. Sant——”
“Bless ’im for a hinnercent suckling-dove o’cooing among the sarpints!” she interrupted, with a tight little laugh.
We looked at her quite bewildered, and Uncle Jenico was evidently at a loss for an answer.
“What ’e wants, that ’e believes,” said Mrs. Puddephatt, nodding her head many times. “But he ain’t a Londoner, and hi ham!”