“Dear me, how disappointing!” said Miss Tollicks. “Now do you know I thought you had come after servants; I did indeed.”
“Really,” said Septimus sadly, “I am sorry to have caused you disappointment; but it was important that I should know, and I called—urgent—troubled you,” he stammered again, looking in vain at Matt, who only took snuff.
“O, don’t apologise, pray,” said Miss Tollicks; “come in and sit down, and let’s—let me,” she said, correcting herself,—“let me hear what it is. There, don’t laugh at me, for one is obliged to be so particular how one speaks to the grand people who come for servants.”
Miss Tollicks led the way into her inner chamber, where the fat dog slept snoringly in the sunshine; and, after a little hesitation, her two visitors took the proffered chairs.
“Mr Flips, surgeon,” said the lady of the place, after a little preliminary conversation, “no, I never heard the name, and I’ve been here two years this next week, when my landlord will most likely call. He says he has a bad memory, but he always recollects the quarter-days. He lives down in Dorsetshire, and when he comes up I can ask him if you like; perhaps he would know; or you might write; but he’s sure to write to me directly to say he is coming, so that, as he says, I may be ready for him, just as if one ever was ready for one’s landlord. Two years—yes, just two years,” she continued musingly. “There was a whole year at the millinery, which didn’t half-pay the rent; for people here don’t seem to wear bonnets, and when they do, they’ve been turned and cleaned and altered or somethinged or anothered, although I put my prices so low that there was no room for a bit of profit. Then there was the fancy stationery three months, which was worse, for the only kind of stationery the people fancied was penny-stamps, which cost me a penny a-piece, and then people either wanted them to be stuck on their letters, or else wrapped, up in paper. Then there was the newspaper and periodical trade, which was worse than all; for, as if just out of aggravation, the people always came and asked for the very thing you had not got. I declare that if it wasn’t that you can sit down and read your stock, the periodical trade would be unbearable. Only think of the trouble people gave you by ordering things regularly and never coming and fetching them; so that the back numbers used to get piled up most terribly. And now, you know, I’ve been six months at this, and it’s so trying, you can’t think; for, you see, I’m worse off than anybody: I’ve not got to please the missuses—I beg pardon, the mistresses only, but the servants; and really, after my experience I can say that there’s no pleasing anyone.”
Septimus Hardon glanced hopelessly at Matt, but he would not see him, and took pinch after pinch of snuff furiously, with a comical expression upon his countenance the former could not interpret.
“You see, though,” continued Miss Tollicks, who seemed to have made up her mind to thoroughly enjoy herself with a good talk; “you see, though, there is one advantage—there’s no stock required, and it is genteel; but really, after all, it is so vexatious and pays so badly that I think I shall give it up, and take to tobacco. I suppose it’s a business that pays well, and people do use it to such an extent that it’s quite wonderful. But let me see! Phillips—Flips—Flips—no, I never even heard of the name; but, do you know, I shouldn’t wonder if a doctor did once live here; for there’s a regular street-door bell that rings down-stairs, and another that rings up in the second-floor front, just as the night-bell used to at Doctor Masters’s, where I once lived at, as—ahem, ahem!—excuse my cough, pray,” said Miss Tollicks, colouring; “but there!” she said sharply the next moment, “where I lived as lady’s-maid, and I don’t see why I should be ashamed of it.”
“Hear, hear!” said old Matt, speaking for the first time.
“But can you tell who lived here before you?” said Septimus.
“O, yes; a dairy,” replied Miss Tollicks; “but it was only here six months, and my landlord told me the people didn’t pay any rent, but went off in the night so shabby, leaving nothing behind but a black-and-white plaster cow, and a moss-basket with three chalk eggs, in the window; and my landlord says that’s why he looks so sharp after me, which isn’t nice, you know; but then you can’t be surprised. Let me see, I think it was a coffee-house before that.”