"White gauze, I think," said the old gentleman, considering. "Yes, it was white gauze, and a touch of green about it somewhere."
"Huh! Touch o' green was a fig-leaf, I s'pose—hope so, anyhow!" said Mrs. Botlisch, and "wallopped" down another oyster. She was a terrible old woman.
"I don't know what we'd do without you, doctor," said Mazie precipitately. "You know so much about it—what we ought to do, I mean, and how the whole thing ought to go. It's ever so kind of you——"
"Not at all—the kindness is on your side," said the doctor. He glanced about with a smile in which there lurked a whimsical melancholy. "I don't aspire to the post of guide, philosopher, and fr——"
"Talkin' o' guides," old Mrs. Botlisch interrupted him. "Ever hear that story 'bout the English feller that went aroun' Niagry Falls with a guide, out to Table Rock an' Goat Island, and down under th' Falls an' everywheres, an' when they got through, he took an' wrote in th' visitors' book, 'Why am I like Desdemona?' That's th' white girl that married a nigger in one o' these here plays, you know. He took an' wrote, 'Why am I like Desdemona? Becuz——'"
"Ahem!" interrupted Doctor Vardaman, with extraordinary vehemence. "You were asking me for the address of the man that sells make-up boxes, one of you the other day. I meant to bring it with me to-night, but forgot. Any time you want, you can stop at my house, and in case I'm out, ask Huddesley, I left it with him. It's Kryzowski—bowski—wowski—some such unpronounceable Russian name, and his shop is somewhere on Sixth Avenue, I think, but I can't exactly remember."
All of which speech the doctor delivered in a rapid and vigorous outburst of words, not pausing until he was quite out of breath; and even then he had the air of one skirting by a hair's-breadth some desperate verge.
"I'll stop in to-morrow," said J. B. "Huddesley isn't likely to get mixed up about it, is he?"
"Huddesley? Oh, no, trust him. Besides I'll leave it written down. But Huddesley is perfectly reliable—a remarkable man, that—never had a such a servant is my house—he's really unusual."
"Snake in th' grass—don't tell me!" Mrs. Botlisch grunted. She had taken a bitter prejudice against the doctor's man-servant; partly, no doubt, because although he was a good deal about the house, coming and going on the doctor's errands, he had managed to avoid both her bullying and her patronage. There is nothing more offensive than the servant whose manners are better than our own. And Huddesley's manners were perfect in his degree; he was English, we supposed from the short fragment of his history we had heard, and had not been long enough abroad to lose the insular standard of domestic service, and the insular traditions of class.