A compromise was effected, however. Susan was to be queen on her own premises; and if she must occasionally "put on airs" herself and "boss" somebody, why she might always "boss" me.
"I think," said my friend Agnes, "you have very neatly arranged to have as much trouble as possible. The question of caste will crop up every hour of the day. If the worst comes to the worst, let them all go except Susan! Harriet Martineau gives fine advice, for an old maid: 'Never nag your servants—but if occasion demands, come down upon them like the day of judgment.'"
"I stand by Susan," I assured her, "whatever she does. I am dreadfully opposed to capital punishment, but if anybody kills a cook, he needn't bring his case to our office."
Susan had offended, by her assumption of superiority, all the members of my household except myself, to whom she was most kind and respectful. The boy James had been brought by his aunts, who promised to train him for my service. He soon developed an ingenuity in teasing the cook amounting to inspiration. Matters between them reached a crisis one morning. I was reading my paper in the office adjoining the breakfast-room when I heard Susan's raucous voice: "What do you mean coming in this kitchen hollerin' out 'Susan, Susan'? Whar's your manners?"
"I loant 'em to de cook dis mornin', Susan—leastways Miss Moss! I always disremembers yo' entitlements."
"Well, you just get out of this kitchen! I can send breakfast up on the dumb waiter. You stay in your own place."
"I kin make myse'f skase, Miss Moss, but dat ain't de pint. Cose de dumb waiter can't talk, an' I has to speak about clean plates an'—"
"Get out o' here, I tell you. Clean, indeed! And your face not washed this morning! An' you all pizened up with scent like—"
"Lawd, Miss Moss! Don't say what I'se like! An' what I gwine fling water in my face for? I ain' no house afire."
In a few minutes Susan, her ample figure endowed with a fresh white apron, and her bandanna turban tied to a nicety, presented herself, dropped a courtesy, and said with perfect politeness:—