“But about your character, my boy,” I said. “You must have somebody to speak for you, and say you are honest, and what you are able to do. I always want a good character with my servants; the last page-boy I had brought three years' good character from his former situation.”
“Lor!” said Joe, with a serious look, “did he stay three years in a place afore he came to you? Wotever did he leave them people for, where he were so comfortable? If I stay with you three years, you won't catch me a leavin' yer, and goin' somewheres else. Wot a muff that chap was!”
I explained that it did not always depend on whether a servant wanted to stay or not, but whether it suited the employers to keep him.
“'Praps he did somethin', and they giv' 'im the sack,” murmured Joe; “he was a flat!”
“But about this character of yours,” I said; “if I decide to give you a trial, although I am almost sure you are too small, and won't do, where am I to go for your character? Will the people where your brother lives speak for you?”
“Oh, yes!” cried the little fellow, his cheeks flushing; “I know Dick'll ask 'em to give me a caricter. Miss Edith, I often cleaned 'er boots. Once she come 'ome in the mud, and was a-goin' out agin directly; and they was lace-ups, and a orful bother to do up even; and she come into the stable-yard with 'er dog, and sez: 'Dick, will you chain Tiger up, and this little boy may clean my boots if he likes, on my feet?' So I cleaned 'em, and she giv' me sixpence; and after that, when the boots come down in the mornin', I got Dick always to let me clean them little boots, and I kep 'em clean in the insides, like the lady's maid she told me not to put my 'ands inside 'em if they was black. Miss Edith, she'll giv me a caricter, if Dick asks 'er.”
Just then the visitors' bell rang; and I sent my would-be page into the kitchen to wait until I could speak to him again, and told him to ask the cook to give him something to eat.
“Here are your flowers,” I said; “take them with you.”
He looked at me, and then, as if ashamed of having offered them, gathered them up in his hands, and with the corner of the red handkerchief wiped some few leaves and dust-marks off my table, then saying in a low voice, “I didn't know you 'ad beauties of yer own, like them in the glass pots, but I'll giv' 'em to the cook.” So saying, he went away into the kitchen, and my visitors came in, and by and by some more friends arrived.
The weather was very warm, and we sat chattering and enjoying the shade of the trees by the open French window. Presently, somebody being thirsty, I suggested lemonade and ice, and I offered strawberries, and (if possible) cream; though my mind misgave me as to the latter delicacy, for we had several times been obliged to do without some of our luxuries if they entailed “fetching,” as we had no boy to run errands quickly on an emergency and be useful. However, I rang the bell; and when the housemaid, whose temper, since she had been what is curiously termed in servants'-hall language “single-handed,” was most trying, entered, I said, “Make some lemonade, Mary, and ask cook to gather some strawberries quickly, and bring them, with some cream.”