“That’s right, Evan. Now you understand you are to be my man of all work—errand-boy, footman, valet, groom, coachman, gardener, butler, sailor, steward and cook—in fact, general factotum.”
Prescott laughed, and Evan opened his eyes in astonishment.
“Lor’ bless you, sir, I don’t know nothing about driving coaches, or gardening, or cooking.”
“No!” Frank said in a tone of great surprise. “Of course in that case I shall not be able to trust either my coach or my garden into your charge at present. As to cooking, I should advise you to commence as soon as possible; and I should recommend you to go through a course of study: begin, say, by boiling a potato in its skin; next endeavour to reach perfection with an egg; proceed gradually to a rasher of bacon; and after that, master the intricacies of chops and steaks. I think that will do for the present; my little favourite dishes I will myself instruct you in afterwards.”
“What nonsense you do talk, Frank!” Prescott said, laughing; “the boy does not know whether you are in earnest or not.”
Which, indeed, was the truth, for Evan was standing shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, and twirling his cap between his hands with a look of considerable embarrassment.
“Well, Evan,” Frank went on, “as Mr. Prescott seems to think that at present we had better leave these matters alone, I suppose we must postpone the cooking part of the business, as well as the driving and gardening, and hope that it will all come in time. And now, Prescott, about his dress; what do you say to a neat thing in green, picked out with scarlet?”
“Nonsense, Frank! I don’t see that you want to put him in livery at all.”
“My dear Prescott,” Frank said, plaintively, “you have no idea of the fitness of things. You destroy all my illusions. I did think that green picked out with scarlet would have harmonised well with the room. Do you not agree with me, now, that a Turkish dress with a fez, and especial instruction as to cleaning and lighting pipes and making black coffee, would have a good effect;—a sort of Nubian slave attire, only he would have to black his face to be in keeping? You would not mind that, Evan, would you?”
Evan had by this time an idea that his new master was only joking, so he answered more briskly, “I don’t know that I should mind it much, sir.”