“It is a very small thing that I should be judged of man's judgment.”
A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL
Never had I met any man so methodical in his habits, so neat in his dress, so accurate in speech, so precise in manner as my fellow-lodger. When he took his bath in the morning I knew it was half-past seven, and when he rang for hot water that it was a quarter to eight Until a quarter-past he moved about the room in his slow, careful dressing, and then everything was quiet next door till half-past eight, when the low murmur of the Lord's Prayer concluded his devotions. Two minutes later he went downstairs—if he met a servant one could hear him say “Good morning”—and read his newspaper—he seldom had letters—till nine, when he rang for breakfast. Twenty-past nine he went upstairs and changed his coat, and he spent five minutes in the lobby selecting a pair of gloves, brushing his hat, and making a last survey for a speck of dust One glove he put on opposite the hat-stand, and the second on the doorstep, and when he touched the pavement you might have set your watch by nine-thirty. Once he was in the lobby at five and twenty minutes to ten, distressed and flurried.
“I cut my chin slightly when shaving,” he explained, “and the wound persists in bleeding. It has an untidy appearance, and a drop of blood might fall on a letter.”
The walk that morning was quite broken, and before reaching the corner, he had twice examined his chin with a handkerchief, and shaken his head as one whose position in life was now uncertain.
“It is nothing in itself,” he said afterwards, with an apologetic allusion to his anxiety, “and might not matter to another man. But any little misadventure—a yesterday's collar or a razor cut, or even an inky finger—would render me helpless in dealing with people. They would simply look at the weak spot, and one would lose all authority. Some of the juniors smile when I impress on them to be very careful about their dress—quiet, of course, as becomes their situation, but unobjectionable. With more responsibility they will see the necessity of such details. I will remember your transparent sticking-plaster—a most valuable suggestion.”
His name was Frederick Augustus Perkins; so ran the card he left on my table a week after I settled in the next rooms, and the problem of his calling gradually became a standing vexation. It fell under the class of conundrums, and one remembered from childhood that it is mean to be told the answer, so I might not say to Mister Perkins—for it was characteristic of the prim little man that no properly constituted person could have said Perkins—“By the way, what is your line of things?” or any more decorous rendering of my curiosity.
Mrs. Holmes, who was as a mother to Mr. Perkins and myself, as well as two younger men of literary pursuits and irregular habits, had a gift of charming irrelevance, and was able to combine allusions to Mr. Perkins' orderly life and the amatory tendencies of a new cook in a mosaic of enthralling interest.