“Git out, you beast! Nasty, dirty brute! Gives me more trouble than the whitewashers, it do! It’s a good house!” and here she nearly fell forward—“for good tenants,—I’ve lived here myself for a twelvemonth!”
With that she banged the door full in my face, and I straightway fled, wondering whether the owner of the “good ’ouse” had any notion as to the way in which his property was “taken care” of. I suppose not,—for day after day I see it still “To Let,” and I fancy it will not easily find a tenant so long as its present “care-taker” finds her lodgment comfortable.
One morning I came upon an odd “care-taker” in a pretty house near Kensington Gardens. It was a “he” this time,—a placid, cunning, bent little old man with the air of the respectable retired butler about him. He was of a curious disposition,—garrulous, yet reticent;—he would begin to talk about the former owner of the house, and then would pull himself up short as though afraid of betraying confidence. The rooms were very handsomely decorated,—but it seemed that the owner had given it up abruptly after only three years’ tenancy.
“It looked beautiful,” said the grey-haired cicerone with a smothered sigh—“when it was all furnished. There was the Venus of Mydeses (Medicis) in the boudoir, and there was statues and busts all about, and oak-framed pictures in the dining-room,—yes! it was really quite bee-autiful when he had it all done up—”
Here he broke off and dusted the banisters.
“Why did he leave it after spending so much money upon it?” I asked.
The respectable old gentleman looked at me shrewdly.
“Ah!” he responded with a curious expression in his filmy eyes—“Why indeed!”
This was baffling, and he seemed to think it so, for by way of relenting, he confided to me the information (a well-worn ruse) that there had already been several people after the house, and that I had better see about it at once if I wished to secure it. I took the information very unconcernedly.
“Oh, I am not at all keen about it,” I said—“I have seen a house in Gladys Gardens I like rather better.”