The Potiphar Papers

by George William Curtis

“Oh! nothing, nothing; but—but—”

“Yes, ma’am,” said James.

“But—but, I want to see—to see—”

“What ma’am?” said James.

“Your legs,” gasped I; and the path was thorny enough, Carrie, I can tell you. I had a terrible time explaining to him what I meant, and all about the liveries, etc. Dear me! what a pity these things are not understood: and then we should never have this trouble about explanations. However, I couldn’t make him agree to wear the livery. He said:

“I’ll try to be a good servant, ma’am, but I cannot put on those things and make a fool of myself. I hope you won’t insist, for I am very anxious to get a place.”

Think of his dictating to me. I told him that I did not permit my servants to impose conditions upon me (that’s one of Mrs. Croesus’s sayings), that I was willing to pay him good wages and treat him well, but that my James must wear my livery. He looked very sorry, said that he should like the place very much,—that he was satisfied with the wages, and was sure that he should please me, but he could not put on those things. We were both determined, and so parted. I think we were both sorry; for I should have to go all through the calf-business again, and he lost a good place.

However, Caroline dear, I have my livery and my footman, and am as good as anybody. It’s very splendid when I go to Stewart’s to have the red plush and the purple, and the white calves springing down to open the door, and to see people look, and say, “I wonder who that is?” And everybody bows so nicely, and the clerks are so polite, and Mrs. Gnu is melting with envy on the other side, and Mrs. Croesus goes about saying, “Dear little woman, that Mrs. Potiphar, but so weak! Pity, pity!” And Mrs. Settum Downe says, “Is that the Potiphar livery? Ah, yes, Mr. Potiphar’s grandfather used to shoe my grandfather’s horses!”—(as if to be useful in the world, were a disgrace,—as Mr. P. says) and young Downe, and Boosey, and Timon Croesus come up and stand about so gentlemanly, and say, “Well Mrs. Potiphar, are we to have no more charming parties this season?”—and Boosey says, in his droll way, “Let’s keep the ball a-rolling!” That young man is always ready with a witticism. Then I step out and James throws open the door, and the young men raise their hats, and the new crowd says, “I wonder who that is!” and the plush and purple, and calves spring up behind, and I drive home to dinner.

Now, Carrie, dear, isn’t that nice?

Well, I don’t know how it is—but things are so queer. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, in my room, which I have had tapestried with fluted rose silk, and lie thinking, under the lace curtains; although I may have been at one of Mrs. Gnu’s splendid parties the night before, and am going to Mrs. Silke’s to dinner, and to the opera and Mrs. Settum Downe’s in the evening, and have nothing to do all the day but go to Stewart’s, or Martelle’s or Lefevre’s, and shop, and pay morning calls;—do you know, as I say, that sometimes I hear an old familiar tune played upon a hand-organ far away in some street, and it seems to me in that half-drowsy state under the laces, that I hear the girls and boys singing it in the fields where we used to play. It is a kind of dream, I suppose, but often, as I listen, I am sure that I hear Henry’s voice again that used to ring so gayly among the old trees, and I walk with him in the sunlight to the bank by the river, and he throws in the flower—as he really did—and says, with a laugh, “If it goes this side of the stump I am saved; if the other, I am lost;” and then he looks at me as if I had anything to do with it, and the flower drifts slowly off and off, and goes the other side of the old stump, and we walk homeward silently, until Henry laughs out, and says, “Thank heaven, my fate is not a flower;” and I swear to love him for ever and ever, and marry him, and live in a dingy little old room in some of the dark and dirty streets in the city.