"Everything except skillful servants, and they are hard to find. You are capable of training your cook and teaching your upstairs girl to sweep and make beds; but the test of a well-run house is a well-served meal. Dish-breaking ought to be a felony, and when I become President I propose to make the spoiling of food a capital offense. Now then, you're not eating a bite, anyhow, and Gus won't mind waiting awhile for his dinner. With your permission, I'd like to take things in hand and add a hundred per cent to your future comfort?"
In some bewilderment Ma agreed that she would do anything her guest suggested, whereupon he rose energetically and called the three domestics into the dining room.
"We are going to start this dinner all over again," he announced, "and we are going to begin by swapping places. I am going to serve it as a dinner should be served, and you are going to eat it as—Well, I dare say nature will have to take its course. I shall explain, as I go along, and I want you to remember every word I say, every move I make. Mr. and Mrs. Briskow are going to look on. After we have finished you are going to serve us exactly as I served you."
Naturally, this proposition amazed the "help"; in fact, its absurdity convulsed them. The man laughed loudly; the cook buried her ebony face in her apron; the second girl bent double with mirth. Here was a quaint gentleman, indeed, and a great joker. But the gentleman was not joking. On the contrary, he brought this levity to an abrupt end, then, gravely, ceremoniously, he seated the trio. They sobered quickly enough at this; they became, in fact, as funereal as three crows; but their astonishment at what followed was no greater than that of the Briskows.
Gray played butler with a correctness and a poise deeply impressive to his round-eyed audience, and as he served the courses he delivered a lecture upon the etiquette of domestic service, the art of cooking, and the various niceties of a servant's calling. Nothing could have been more impressive than being waited upon by a person of his magnificence, and his lecture, moreover, was delivered in a way that drove understanding into their thick heads.
It was an uncomfortable experience for all except Gray himself—he actually enjoyed it—and when the last dish had been removed, and he had given instructions to serve the meal over again exactly as he had served it, the three negroes were glad to obey. Of course they made mistakes, but these Gray instantly corrected, and the results of his dress rehearsal were, on the whole, surprising.
"There!" he said, when the ordeal had finally come to an end. "A little patience, a little practice, and you'll be proud of them. Incidentally, I have saved you a fortune in dishes."
"I wish Allie'd been here. She'd remember everything you said," Ma declared.
"Lord! Think of Mr. Gray waitin' on them niggers!" Gus was still deeply shocked.
"You see what a meddlesome busybody I am," the guest laughed. "I don't know how to mind my own business, and the one luxury I enjoy most of all is regulating other people's affairs." He was still talking, still lecturing his hearers upon the obligations prosperity had put upon them, when he was summoned to the telephone by a long-distance call. He returned in some agitation to announce: "Well, at last I have business of my own to attend."