“Your sentiments do you the greatest of credit, Mrs Downes; but you are too tender.”
“I can’t help it, Mr Robbins,” said the lady pathetically.
“And I’m sure no one wishes that you should, Mrs Downes, for I say it boldly so that all may hear,—except the two lady’s maids who have left the hall,—that a better cook, and a kinder fellow-servant never came into a house.”
Another murmur of applause, and the cook sighed, shed two more tears, and felt, to use her own words, afterward expressed, “all of a fluster.”
“Mr Robbins,” she began.
“I beg your pardon, madam, I have not finished,” said the butler, smiling. “I only wished to observe, and I must say it even if I give offence to your delicate susceptibilities, madam, that that furren papist fellow with the organ haunts Portland Place like a regular demon, smiling at weak woman, and taking of her captive, when it’s well known what lives the poor creatures live out Saffron Hill way. I should feel as I was not doing my duty toward my fellow creatures if I didn’t protest against such a man having any encouragement here.”
“Hear, hear,” said the footman again.
“Some impudent person once observed,” continued the butler, “that when a footman married he took a room in a mews for his wife, and furnished it with a tub and a looking-glass.”
“Haw, haw, haw!” laughed the buttons.
“Henry, be silent, or you will have to leave the room,” said the butler, sternly. “A tub and a looking-glass, I repeat,” he added, as he looked round, “so that his wife might try to get her living by washing, and see herself starve.”