On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult for a sensitive master or mistress to give the true reason for their parting with a servant. A friend of mine had a footman who, through trick, or some defect in his respiratory organs, used to blow like a grampus, and indeed more like a whale, while waiting at table. It was not a vice, of course, but it was very objectionable, and guests who were bald especially objected to it. My friend consulted with his butler, who admitted that 'John did blow like a pauper' (meaning, as I suppose, a porpoise), and undertook to break the subject to him. It is quite common to find candidates for service very deaf, and if they contrive to pass their 'entrance examination' (for which no doubt they sharpen their faculties), they stay with you for a month at least with an excellent excuse for making it a holiday, since, whatever you tell them to do they cannot hear and do not do it, or do something else which they like better. Mistresses who are silent about moral disqualifications are much more so, of course, about physical ones, and have no scruples in ridding themselves of a deaf man.
The worst class of men-servants, perhaps, are those who are said to 'require a master;' which means that when he happens to be not at home they neglect everything. A friend of mine who happened to take a week's holiday, alone, discovered on his return that his family might almost as well have had no servant at all as the man he left with them; he was generally out, and when at home had not even troubled himself to answer the drawing-room bell. Some men-servants are always running out; they have 'just stepped round the corner,' they say, 'to post a letter;' which in nine cases out of ten means to have a dram at the public-house. The servants who 'require a master' sometimes retain their situation with a very selfish one by devoting themselves to his service at the expense of the rest of the family. 'John suits me very well,' he says, 'and thoroughly understands his duties,' which in this case means the length of the master's foot.
On the other hand, there are some men-servants who, one would think, ought to belong to the other sex, so utterly ignorant they are of that branch of their duty which they call 'valeting.' A lady blessed with a scientific husband, who certainly did not take much notice whether he was 'valeted' or not, once complained to his man of his neglect in this particular. 'When your master comes in, William, you should look after him, and see to his hat and coat, and pay him little attentions.' So the next time the man of science came in he was not a little surprised by William (who, it is fair to say, came from the country) running up and taking his hat off his head, like some highly-trained retriever. Happy the master to whom a worse thing has never happened at the hands of his retainer!
The main thing to be dreaded in men-servants—next to downright dishonesty—is, of course, intoxication. If a man has been long in one's service and gets drunk for once and away, it may well be forgiven him; but when your new servant gets drunk, wait till he is sober enough to receive his wages, and then dismiss him—if you can. Not long ago I had occasion to discharge a butler for habitual intoxication; he was never quite drunk, but also never quite sober; he was a sot. I made him fetch a cab, and saw his luggage put upon it, and I tendered him his month's wages. But he refused to leave the house without board wages. Of course, I declined to pay him any such thing; and, as he persisted in leaning against the dining-room door murmuring at intervals, 'I wants my board wages,' I sent for a policeman. 'Be so good,' I said,' as to turn this drunken person out of my house.' 'I daren't do it, sir,' was the reply; 'that would be to exceed my duty.' 'Then, why are you here?' 'I am here, sir, to see that you turn the man out yourself without using unnecessary violence.' 'The man' was six feet high and as stout as a beer-barrel. I could no more have moved him than Skiddaw, and he knew it. 'I stays here,' he chanted in his maudlin way, 'till I gets my board wages.' Fortunately, two Oxford undergraduates happened to be in the house, to whom I mentioned my difficulty, and I shall not easily forget the delighted promptitude with which they seized upon the offender and 'ran him out' into the street. He fled down the area steps at once with a celerity that convinced me he was accustomed to being turned out of houses, and tried to obtain re-admission at the back-door. It was fortunately locked, but when I said to the policeman, 'Now, please to remove that man,' he answered, 'No, sir; that would be to exceed my duty; he is still upon your premises and a member of your household.' As it was raining heavily, the delinquent, though sympathised with by a great crowd round the area railings, presently got tired of his position and went away. But supposing my young Oxford friends had not been in the house and he had fallen upon me (a little man) in the act of expulsion; or supposing I had been a widow lady with no protector, would that too faithful retainer have remained in my establishment for ever?
I have purposely addressed myself to that large class of the community only who are said 'to keep a man-servant'—that is, one man, assisted, perhaps, by a page. Those who keep butler, footman, coachman, grooms, and valets are comparatively few in number, and know nothing of the inconveniences which their less wealthy fellow-countrymen endure. In large establishments, if William is drunk, John is sober, and the work is done for the rich man by somebody; especially, too, if William is drunk, there are John and Thomas to turn him out of the house and have done with him. But it is certain that the lower Ten Thousand are not in a satisfactory condition as respects their men-servants; hardly more so, in fact, than the Hundred Thousand are in regard to their maids. The men-servants, however, are not so ignorant of their duties as are the latter, and if only their masters would have the courage to tell the truth when giving them their 'characters,' there would be a great improvement in them. Against the masters themselves (unlike the mistresses) I have never heard much complaint. Most of them object to be 'bothered' and 'troubled,' and are willing enough to put everything into their man's hands, including the key of the Cellar, if only they could trust him; but at present, alas! this is a very large 'If.'
WHIST-PLAYERS.
If cards are the Devil's books, Whist is the édition de luxe of them. Whist-playing is one of the few vices of the upper classes that has not in time descended to the lower, with whom the ingenious and attractive game of 'All Fours' has always held its own against it. I have known but two men not belonging to the upper ten thousand who played well at whist. One was a well-known jockey in the South of England, who was also, by the way, an admirable billiard-player. He called himself an amateur, but those who played with him used to complain that his proceedings were even ultra-professional. On the Turf men are almost as equal as they are under it, and this ornament of the pigskin would on certain occasions (race meetings) take his place at the card-table with some who were very literally his betters, while others who had more self-respect contented themselves with backing him. The other example I have in my mind was an ancient Cumberland yeoman, who, having lost the use of his limbs in middle life from having been tossed by a bull, pursued the science under considerable difficulties. A sort of card-rack (such as Psycho uses at the Egyptian Hall) was placed in front of him, and behind him stood his little granddaughter who played the cards for him by verbal direction. Both these men played a very good game of the old-fashioned kind, for though the jockey used subtleties, they were not of the Clay or Cavendish sort. The asking for trumps was a device unknown to him, though there were folks who whispered he would take them under certain circumstances without asking, and of the leading of the penultimate with five in the suit it could be said of him, for once, that he was as innocent as a babe.
Of course, many persons join the 'upper ten' who come from the lower twenty (or even thirty), and it need not be said that they are by no means inferior in sagacity to their new acquaintances; yet they rarely make first-rate players. Whist, like the classics, must be learnt young for any excellence to be attained in it. Of this Metternich was a striking example. If benevolent Nature ever intended a man for a whist-player one would have supposed that she had done so in his case, but had been baffled by some malign Destiny which had degraded him to that class by whom, in conjunction with Kings, it was fondly believed, previously to the recent general election, that 'the world was governed.' Until late in life he never took to whist, when he grew wildly fond of it, and played incessantly, till it is said a certain memorable event took place which caused him never to touch a card again. The story goes that, rapt in the enjoyment of the game, he suffered a special messenger to wait for hours, to whom if he had given his attention more promptly a massacre of many hundred persons would have been prevented. Humanity may drop a tear, but whist had nothing to regret in the circumstance; for in Metternich it did not lose a good player, and, what redeems his intelligence, he knew it. 'I learnt my whist too late,' he would say, with more pathos and solemnity, perhaps, than he would have used when speaking of more momentous matters of omission.
He must be a wise man indeed who, being an habitual whist-player, is aware that he is a bad one. In games of pure skill, such as chess, and, in a less degree, billiards, a man must be a fool who deceives himself upon such a point; but in whist there is a sufficient amount of chance to enable him to preserve his self-complacency for some time—let us say, his lifetime. If he loses, he ascribes it to his 'infernal luck,' which always fills his hands with twos and threes; and if he wins, though it is by a succession of four by honours as long as the string of four-in-hands when the Coaching Club meets in Hyde Park, he ascribes it to his skill. 'If I hadn't played trumps just when I did,' he modestly observes to his partner, 'all would have been over with us;' though the result would have been exactly the same had he played blindfold. To an observer of human nature, who is not himself a loser 'on the day,' there are few things more charming than the genial, gentle self-approval of two players of this class who have just defeated two experts, and proved, to their own satisfaction, that if fortune gives them 'a fair chance' or 'something like equal cards,' as they term the conditions of their late performance, they can play as well as other people.