“As it is now 9:30,” I observed coldly, “there has been time enough lost. I am hors de combat, or I would have atended to it long ago.”
He had drawn a stand beside the bed, and I now sat up and looked at my Tray. The orange was cut through the wrong way!
Had I needed proof, dear log or journal, I had it there. For any Butler knows how to cut a breakfast orange.
“William,” I said, as he was going out, “how long have you been a Butler?”
Perhaps this was a foolish remark as being calculated to put him on his guard. But “out of the fullness of the Heart the Mouth speaketh.” It was said. I could not withdraw my words.
He turned suddenly and looked at me.
“Me, miss?” he said in a far to inocent tone. “Why, I don’t know exactly.” He then smiled and said: “There are some who think I am not much of a Butler now.”
“Just a word of advise, William,” I said in a signifacant tone. “A real Butler cuts an orange the other way. I am telling you, because although having grape fruit mostly, some morning some one may order an orange, and one should be very careful these days.”
Shall I ever forget his face as he went out? No, never. He knew that I knew, and was one to stand no nonsense. But I had put him on his guard. It was to be a battle of Intellagence, his brains against mine.
Although regretful at first of having warned him, I feel now that it is as well. I am one who likes to fight in the open, not as a serpent coiled in the grass and pretending, like the one in the Bible, to be a friend.