“D’you have to do much of this sort of thing?” inquired Mr. Graves, from a superior standpoint.
“Any amount,” replied Mr. Bunter, with a groan calculated to appeal to Mr. Graves’s heart and unlock his confidence. “If you’d kindly hold one end of this bit of linoleum, Mrs. Pemming, I’ll hold up this end while Miss Mabel operates. Yes, Mr. Graves, it’s a hard life, valeting by day and developing by night—morning tea at any time from 6.30 to 11, and criminal investigation at all hours. It’s wonderful, the ideas these rich men with nothing to do get into their heads.”
“I wonder you stand it,” said Mr. Graves. “Now there’s none of that here. A quiet, orderly, domestic life, Mr. Bunter, has much to be said for it. Meals at regular hours; decent, respectable families to dinner—none of your painted women—and no valeting at night, there’s much to be said for it. I don’t hold with Hebrews as a rule, Mr. Bunter, and of course I understand that you may find it to your advantage to be in a titled family, but there’s less thought of that these days, and I will say, for a self-made man, no one could call Sir Reuben vulgar, and my lady at any rate is county—Miss Ford, she was, one of the Hampshire Fords, and both of them always most considerate.”
“I agree with you, Mr. Graves—his lordship and me have never held with being narrow-minded—why, yes, my dear, of course it’s a footmark, this is the washstand linoleum. A good Jew can be a good man, that’s what I’ve always said. And regular hours and considerate habits have a great deal to recommend them. Very simple in his tastes, now, Sir Reuben, isn’t he? for such a rich man, I mean.”
“Very simple indeed,” said the cook; “the meals he and her ladyship have when they’re by themselves with Miss Rachel—well, there now—if it wasn’t for the dinners, which is always good when there’s company, I’d be wastin’ my talents and education here, if you understand me, Mr. Bunter.”
Mr. Bunter added the handle of the umbrella to his collection, and began to pin a sheet across the window, aided by the housemaid.
“Admirable,” said he. “Now, if I might have this blanket on the table and another on a towel-horse or something of that kind by way of a background—you’re very kind, Mrs. Pemming.... Ah! I wish his lordship never wanted valeting at night. Many’s the time I’ve sat up till three and four, and up again to call him early to go off Sherlocking at the other end of the country. And the mud he gets on his clothes and his boots!”
“I’m sure it’s a shame, Mr. Bunter,” said Mrs. Pemming, warmly. “Low, I calls it. In my opinion, police-work ain’t no fit occupation for a gentleman, let alone a lordship.”
“Everything made so difficult, too,” said Mr. Bunter nobly sacrificing his employer’s character and his own feelings in a good cause; “boots chucked into a corner, clothes hung up on the floor, as they say—”
“That’s often the case with these men as are born with a silver spoon in their mouths,” said Mr. Graves. “Now, Sir Reuben, he’s never lost his good old-fashioned habits. Clothes folded up neat, boots put out in his dressing-room, so as a man could get them in the morning, everything made easy.”