“Which reminds me, Clara,” I said. “Why does it take you so long to get tea when people call? You were three-quarters of an hour yesterday after I rang.”
“The kettle wouldn’t boil, m’m,” Clara replied.
She gave me the impression of having at last lost patience with her former accomplice, the kettle, and decided to “tell on him.”
“Oh,” I said, “you don’t think we had better have a man in to see about it, do you?”
Clara wavered for a moment between professional scorn of this suggestion and the irresistible bait I had thrown out. She hesitated and compromised.
“Well, m’m, it ought to boil quicker; but perhaps next time Mr. Whistle is in the house we might get him to have a look at it; it may be too heavy a make.”
I regard this as Clara’s masterpiece.
But Ruth’s prayers were answered. The “neighbourhood” called, we dined out, and by and by we had to feed others in return.
James and I decided against the professional cook and “hired help,” so it remained to break the news to Ruth and Clara. I told them separately, on a bright morning in June when the little juicy lambs were hanging in clusters in the shops, and expectant peas burst through their pods in every market garden of our hospitable suburb. Ruth bore up wonderfully; in fact, after the first sob of terrified ecstasy I had very little trouble with her. But Clara cried a good deal, and was afraid that her waiting would not do justice either to herself or to me.
However, I told her how Napoleon had risen from quite a little chap to what he afterwards became, entirely by his own efforts; and I also reminded her of a famous judge in my own family who had once been an office boy. And then we all three began to “see about” one thing and another. I felt like an ophthalmic fly by the time we had done, with all its numerous eyes in a state of acute inflammation. I saw the stock for the soup. I saw the fish, and the paper it came in (which means a lot), I saw the sweetbreads, and wondered how James can be so fond of them. I saw the potatoes and the peas; that was nothing, really—half an eye did it, and the other half-eye caught the salad, just to be sure it was fresh. The tournedos of beef took an immense lot of seeing, and when they came up James saw them all over again, and they were not good. The efficient female has since explained to me why theirs are always perfect, but in my soul I believe that there is hanky-panky, if not plain swank about her fillets. Anyhow, some evil planet always shines on mine, so I have made up my mind now that Providence does not wish me to have fillets, and that He knows best, so we have saddle of mutton instead.