“No, he doesn’t; he pays her twelve,” said Thaddeus.
“Then he is just what I said he was,” snapped Bessie—“a mean thing. The idea—twelve dollars a month for all that! Why, if she could prove she was all that you say she is, she could make ten times that amount by exhibiting herself. She is a curiosity. But if I were Mrs. Bradley I wouldn’t have her in the house. So many virtues piled one on the other are sure to make an unsafe structure, and I believe some poor, miserable little vice will crop out somewhere and upset the whole thing.”
“You are jealous,” said Thaddeus; and then he went out.
The next day, meeting his friend Bradley on the street, Thaddeus greeted him with a smile, and said, “Mrs. Perkins thinks you ought to take up literature.”
“Why so?” asked Bradley.
“She thinks De Foe and Scott and Dumas and Stevenson would be thrown into the depths of oblivion if you were to write up that jewel of yours,” said Thaddeus. “She thinks your Mary is one of the finest, most imaginative creations of modern days.”
“She doubts her existence, eh?” smiled Bradley.
“Well, she thinks she’s more likely to be a myth than a Smith,” said Thaddeus. “She told me to ask you if Mary has a twin-sister, and to say that if you hear of her having any relatives at all—and no domestic ever lived who hadn’t—to send her their addresses. She’d like to employ a few.”
“I am sorry Mrs. Perkins is so blinded by jealousy,” said Bradley, with a smile. “And I regret to say that Mary hasn’t a cousin on the whole police force, or, in fact, any kind of a relative whatsoever, unless she prevaricates.”
“Too bad,” said Thaddeus. “I had a vague hope we could stock up on jewels of her kind. Where did you get her, anyhow—Tiffany’s?”