"It can't go on, sir—at least, as far as I am concerned. Either Mr. Theodore will have to mend his ways or I shall have to leave him. I have been a long time with Mr. Theodore, and of course I was with his father before him, and I daresay I am getting old, but do you know what we have got in the attic, sir?"
"What have you got in the attic, Peacock?"
"An Egyptian mummy, sir. It is several thousand years old, and I am convinced that a curse is on it. I wouldn't enter that attic, sir, not me, not for all the wealth of the Rothschilds."
"I was not aware that you were superstitious, Peacock," said I, with a very ineffectual assumption of the formal tone of the married man, the father of the family, and the county member.
"It is not superstition, sir, but I know what I know. That mummy has got to leave this house, or I shall leave it."
"Is that the fiat of the True Believer?"
"I don't fear God the less, sir, because I fear an Egyptian mummy, if that is what you mean."
"But you are inclined to think there are more things in earth and heaven than it is well for the average man to be concerned with?"
"I am convinced of that, sir; and if Mr. Theodore doesn't get rid of that mummy and amend his goings on, I shall be compelled to give notice."
Stated baldly, the old fellow's words may seem ridiculous. But as he uttered them his distress was so sincere that it was impossible to deny him a meed of sympathy.