"Kind of stagey, wasn't he?"
"Yes, of course, he must have got that out of some book. Once in a while, he uses very fine language, indeed, and then I know he's been reading. I said, 'Well, Huddesley, it's a pity, if feeling that way, you can't raise yourself as high as you choose here in America.' I only said it to draw him out, you know. He shook his head mournfully. 'No, sir,' says he, 'Hi won't never be anything but a butler—a servant pourin' out wine an' blackin' boots for the rich and light-'earted like yourself, sir.' I asked him what he would like to be if he could begin over again. 'A hactor, sir,' said he respectfully. 'Hi feel the stirrin' of Hart within my buzzom.' 'That's where we commonly feel 'em, Huddesley,' says I. 'Hi don't mean 'eart, sir, beggin' your parding, Hi mean Hart—with a Hay, sir—that's what Hi feel, but they'll never 'ave no houtlet, sir, Hi'm a butler—the die is cast——' and then I escaped into the garden to laugh."
"That isn't all funny—it's pathetic too," said J. B. thoughtfully. "Poor devil!"
At least two people in the room looked at the young man with a quicker interest—Doctor Vardaman and Muriel, the doctor with an odd and pleased surprise in his keen quizzical face. As for Muriel, she and J. B. looked at one another pretty often, as I remember. Mrs. Botlisch raised her hard old features from a close inspection of her empty, swept and scraped platter, and fixed the doctor with a little twinkling porcine eye.
"How long you had him anyway, Doc.?"
"Three months, or so, I believe."
"Oh, no, it's not that long, Doctor," exclaimed Mazie. "I remember Huddesley came after the holidays, just as I was starting to Washington. That was a little after the Charity Ball. I put off going so as not to miss it. I remember about Huddesley because you had just got rid of that awful man that had d.t's and came up here with an axe wanting to kill somebody."
"Huddesley's arrival raised the tone of our neighbourhood appreciably," said the doctor, with a laugh. Doctor Vardaman's men were a byword in the community. Men of every colour and nationality had drifted through his hands; it was a long procession of lazy, drunken, thieving rascality, or honesty so abysmally stupid and incompetent as to be equally worthless. "I'll never let him go, now I've got him," said the old gentleman. "I have a fellow-feeling for all you ladies that keep house. Rather than lose him, I'd give him everything I own even unto the half of my substance."
"He'll git more'n that 'fore he's through with ye," said Mrs. Botlisch. "You young Taylor feller,"—she always called J. B. and in fact all the young men that frequented the house, by the last name—"you'd better git that bottle o' rye away from Johns. He's had about enough, 'f I'm any jedge—an' I reckon I'd oughter be, all th' drunks I've handled——"