“Truckles, eh!” says I. “Now just who was——”
“My ’usband, sir,” says she. “And I’m Mrs. Truckles.”
“Oh-ho!” says I. “Then this Roulaire name you’ve been flaggin’ under was sort of a nom de plume?”
“It was for Katy I did it!” she sobs.
“Oh, yes,” says I. “Well, what about Katy?”
And, say, that was the way it come out; first, a bit here and then a bit there, with me puttin’ the ends together and patchin’ this soggy everyday yarn out of what we’d all thought was such a deep, dark mystery.
She was English, Mrs. Truckles was, and so was the late Truckles. They’d worked together, him bein’ a first class butler whose only fault was he couldn’t keep his fingers off the decanters. It was after he’d struck the bottom of the toboggan slide and that thirst of his had finished him for good and all that Mrs. Truckles collects her little Katy from where they’d boarded her out and comes across to try her luck on this side.
She’d worked up as far as housekeeper, and had made enough to educate Katy real well and marry her off to a bright young gent by the name of McGowan that owned a half interest in a corner saloon up in the Bronx and stood well with the district leader.
She was happy and contented in them days, Mrs. Truckles was, with McGowan doin’ a rushin’ business, gettin’ his name on the Tammany ticket, and Katy patronizing a swell dressmaker and havin’ a maid of her own. Then, all of a sudden, Mrs. Truckles tumbles to the fact that Katy is gettin’ ashamed of havin’ a mother that’s out to service and eatin’ with the chauffeur and the cook. Not that she wants her livin’ with them,—McGowan wouldn’t stand for that,—but Katy did think Mother might do something for a living that wouldn’t blur up the fam’ly escutcheon quite so much.
It was just when Mrs. Truckles was feelin’ this most keen that the French governess where she was got married and went West to live, leavin’ behind her, besides a collection of old hats, worn out shoes, and faded picture postals, this swell reference from Lady Jigwater. And havin’ put in a year or so in France with dif’rent families that had taken her across, and havin’ had to pick up more or less of the language, Mrs. Truckles conceives the great scheme of promotin’ herself from the back to the front of the house. So she chucks up as workin’ housekeeper, splurges on the wig, and strikes a swell intelligence office with this phony reference.