DEAR TOBY,
Before you sailed you were urgent upon me that I should constantly report progress. Nine months have gone by, and I have not written once. Still, my conscience is clear. Hitherto I have had no progress to report.
Now, however, I have news for you.
You are friends with a footman, Toby. You need not deny it, because I know better. You see, I have been in service for one week to-day.
My mistress is indescribable—a very mammoth among women. Except during prohibited hours, her replica may be seen behind the saloon-bar of any public-house in, say, Bethnal Green. Below stairs she is known as "the dream-child." My master appears to have married, not so much beneath him as beyond him. He is "something in the City." This is as well, for he is nothing in Lancaster Gate. I like him rather.
You would get on with the butler, who is addicted to drink. The ladies of the servants' hall are rather trying, but mean well. The chauffeur is a most superior man. In fact, except that he has been twice convicted of felony and continually boasts of his successful desertion from the Army in 1917, there is nothing against him. My work would be comparatively light if the unfortunate resemblance, to which I have alluded above, were less pronounced. In a word, the butler's working day finishes at 2 p.m., and on two occasions I have had to repair to "The Blue Goat" as late as seven-thirty to hale him out of the tap-room in time for dinner. His carriage in the dining-room, when he can hardly see, is one of the wonders of the world.
Of course I go out with the car—usually to a wedding. The solemnization of matrimony, especially if one of the parties is of noble birth, draws the dream-child as a magnet the steel. Need I say that she is an uninvited guest? Yesterday, at the wedding of a young Marquess, she was stopped at the doors. "Lef me card at 'ome," was her majestic reply. Before they had recovered she was in the aisle. Having regard to her appearance, I am of opinion that such conduct is libellous.
On Monday she gave what she calls a "Serciety Crush." This was well attended, chiefly by aliens, many of whom wore miniature decorations, to which, I fear, they were not entitled. These were, I fancy, hired with the dress-coats to which they were fastened. That they enjoyed the viands is emphasized by the fact that, prior to their departure, several of the guests concealed about their persons such delicacies as the flight of time alone had prevented them from consuming. But for the indisposition of the butler, I should have spent a most amusing evening.
Little altercations between my master and mistress are of frequent occurrence. Occasionally they appeal to me to settle the dispute. Once I actually took the liberty of separating them. Indeed, as recently as yesterday evening the dream-child, who had been keeping up her reading, observed that "the rilewise was thinkin' of givin' up the narrer gorge."
"Gage, me dear—gage," says Mr. Slumper.