Mr. Wilkins was very sorry, I know, and we didn’t blame him; but we weren’t going to let him do anybody else a good turn at our expense. So Harry looked out for man, and having heard of one who was in want of a job, named Tom Dexter, and liking his manner, and what he had heard about him, he took him on, and a better servant we never had.
Tom was about fifty, a fine, burly fellow; but his hair was quite grey, and his face wrinkled. It was trouble, as we found out afterwards, that had given him such an old look.
Tom was soon a great favourite with us all, and it was quite a pleasure to ask him to do anything; he was so willing. The customers liked him, too; and he soon began to do very well, because, being so civil and obliging, he got good tips. And one great thing about him was, he was a strict teetotaller.
I dare say you’ll laugh at a licensed victualler’s wife praising a man for being a teetotaller, because if everybody were teetotallers our trade wouldn’t have been what it was; but I must say with servants it is a great thing when they are teetotallers, especially servants about a place where drink is easy to get.
Tom was quite a character in his way, being full of odd sayings, and very sharp at reckoning people up in a minute. Harry used to say that directly Tom had cleaned a man’s boots he knew his character, but I do not go so far as that, though certainly he was able to tell what people would be like, almost directly he saw them.
When anybody new came, Tom would carry their luggage upstairs, and, for fun, Harry would say sometimes, “Well, Tom, what’s this lot’s character?” Tom would say, “Grumblers, sir,” or “troublesome,” or “mean,” or “jolly,” or something else, as the case might be, and he wasn’t often wrong. Sometimes he would say, “Wait till I’ve had their boots through my hands, sir.” And it was very rarely after that that he hesitated. He used to declare that a man’s boots told a lot about him, and once he tried to explain to me how it was with the boots he was cleaning, for an example. It wasn’t only the shape, but it was the way they were worn at the heels, and the condition of them, and the way he found them put outside the door, and all that. It was a curious idea, but I dare say living among boots, so to speak, and seeing the different varieties, makes you notice little things that other people wouldn’t.
Tom had been with us six months before I knew what his story was, for about himself he never had very much to say. Harry was chaffing him about making a fortune. He was doing so well in tips, and not spending anything, and, having nobody, so far as we knew, to keep, Harry said he would be taking a public-house and setting up in opposition to us.
Tom smiled, and said, “Not likely, sir.” And one thing led to another, till he told us why he was a teetotaller, and what he was saving his money up for.
It seems he had had a wife, who had been a great trouble to him—not at first, because they were very happy, and married for love. Tom was in a good situation in London when they married, and he got a comfortable home together, having always been a hard-working, saving fellow.
He was about thirty when he married, and his wife was ten years younger, so they were a very good match. After they had been married about ten years, and had got two nice children—a boy and a girl—a great trouble came. The little boy was the mother’s favourite, and she doted on him, as mothers will. But when the boy was a nice age, and growing into a sturdy little fellow, he caught the scarlet fever of some other children, and, in spite of everything that could be done for him, he died.