Some weeks afterward I found the bottle of Tarret"s Tonic Port still standing in the sideboard. I gave it to our servant, explaining to her that it would be best mixed with water. There was still the risk of her acquiring drinking habits, but I could think of no one else to give it to. That night Eliza found the girl crying in the kitchen. When Eliza asked what was the matter, she said that she would rather say nothing, but that she was wishful to leave at the end of her month.
Of course Eliza blamed me, but I had told the girl as distinctly as I could speak that it was a wine which required dilution. However, Eliza persuaded her to stay on. The girl took the pledge on the following day, and seemed changed in many ways. She put the bottle back in the sideboard; there was still more than half of it left.
After that nothing happened with reference to the tonic port, until one day I noticed that our cat (who had recently lost her kittens) seemed in a poor state of health. I gave it a few spoonfuls of the tonic port in a little milk. It drank it with avidity, somewhat to my surprise. I had one or two little things to do in the garden after that, and when I came back Eliza said that the cat had become so very strange in its manner that she had thought it best to lock it in the coal-cellar.
I went to look at it, and found it lying on its back, dead. It had a singularly happy expression on its face. Both Eliza and myself were very sorry to lose it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "_It had a singularly happy expression on its face._"]
I judged it best to say nothing about the port. But the bottle had gone from the sideboard. Eliza said that she had removed it, to prevent further accidents.
I told the head clerk about it, but he only laughed in the silliest way. He is a most ill-bred man, in my opinion.
THE GENTLEMAN OF t.i.tLE
One of our younger clerks, a man of the name of Perkins, is said to be very well connected. He certainly spends more than his salary, and rarely wears the same trousers on two consecutive days. But I am not a sn.o.b, nor one who thinks much of these things, and I had never cultivated young Perkins. Consequently it rather surprised me when he introduced me to his friend, the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount. Then I remembered what had been said about Perkins"s connections.
The Hon. Eugene Clerrimount was a handsome young man, though apparently troubled with pimples. His manner had in it what I should call dash.
There was not an ounce of affectation about him; but then high rank does not need affectations--I have always noticed that. He appeared to take rather a liking to me, and insisted that we must all three go out and have a drink together. This is a thing which I really never do, but on this occasion I allowed myself to be persuaded. Not liking to mention beer, I said that I would take a gla.s.s of sherry wine. Nothing could have been more friendly and pleasing than his behaviour toward me; there was nothing at all stuck-up about him. It turned out that, after all, the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount had forgotten his purse, and Perkins happened to have no money on him; I therefore paid for the drinks, and also lent the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount half a crown for his cab; it was, indeed, quite a pleasure to do so. He thanked me warmly, and said that he should like to know me better. Might he call at my house on the following Sat.u.r.day afternoon? As luck would have it, I happened to have a card on me, and presented it to him, saying that it would indeed be an honour. "Thanks," he replied, "and then I can repay you this half-sovereign, or whatever it is." "Only four shillings," I replied, "and pray do not mention it."
[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Gentleman of t.i.tle._]
Eliza was certainly less pleased than myself when she heard that the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount was coming. She said that he might be all right, or he might not, and we did not know anything about him. I replied: "One does not know anything about anybody in that rank of life. It is not necessary."
"Oh!" she said. "Isn"t it? Well, I don"t happen to be an earl myself."
And, really, on the Sat.u.r.day morning I had the greatest difficulty to get Eliza to take a little trouble with the drawing-room, though I asked for nothing more than a thorough dusting, chrysanthemums, and the blinds up. For the tea I offered to make myself entirely responsible.
There was some doubt as to whether the girl should announce him as the Hon. Mr. Clerrimount, or the Hon. Eugene Clerrimount, or Mr. Hon.
Clerrimount. "She"d better do all three, one after the other," said Eliza, snappishly. I obviated the difficulty by telling the girl, as she opened the drawing-room door, merely to say, "A gentleman to see you." I am rather one for thinking of these little ways out of difficulties.
Eliza wanted to know what time he was coming. I replied that he could not come before three or after six, because that would be against etiquette.
"Suppose he came at five minutes to three by accident," said Eliza.
"Would he sit on our doorsteps until the clock struck, and then ring the bell?" I was really beginning to lose patience with Eliza.
However, by three o"clock I had Eliza in the drawing-room, with a magazine and paper-knife by her side, as if she had been reading. She was really darning socks, but they could easily be concealed in an empty art flower-pot when the front bell rang.
We sat in the drawing-room until six, but, strangely enough, the Hon.
Eugene Clerrimount never came. The trifle that I had spent on the Madeira cake and macaroons was nothing, but it did wound my feelings that he had not even thought it worth while to explain his inability to keep his appointment.
And on the Monday I said to Perkins, rather sharply: "There was that matter of four shillings with your friend. I"ve not received the money, and I should thank you to see about it."
"What?" said Perkins. "You ask my friend and me to come and drink with you, and then want me to dun him for the money to pay for it. Well, I _am_ blowed!"
Oh, the whole thing was most unsatisfactory and incomprehensible!
THE HAT
I had long believed that all was not right with my hat. I could prove nothing, but I had no doubt in my own mind that the girl took liberties with it. It is very easy to brush a silk hat the wrong way, for instance, but silk hats do not brush themselves the wrong way; if it is done, some one must have done it. Morning after morning I found marks on my hat which I could not account for. Well, I said nothing, but I made up my mind to keep my eyes open. It was not only the injury to the hat--it was the impertinence to myself that affected me.
One Sat.u.r.day afternoon, while I was at home, a costermonger came to the door with walnuts. The girl answered the bell, and presently I saw the coster and his cart go past the dining-room window. I don"t know why it was, or how it was, but a suspicion came over me. I stepped sharply to the door, and looked out into the pa.s.sage. There was no one there. The front door was open, and the kitchen door was open, and in a position between the two, against the umbrella-stand, was--something worse than ever I had expected.
I picked that hat up just as it was, with the walnuts inside it, and placed it on the dining-room table. Then I called to Eliza to come down-stairs.
"What is it?" she asked, as she entered the dining-room.
I pointed to the hat. "This kind of thing," I said, "has been going on for years!"
"Oh, do talk sense!" she said. "What do you mean?"
"Sense!" I said. "You ask me to talk sense, when I find my own hat standing on the floor in the hall, and used as a--a receptacle for walnuts!"
She smiled. "I can explain all that," she said.
"I"ve no doubt you can. I"m sick to death of explanations. I give ten or eleven shillings for a hat, and find it ruined. I know those explanations. You told the girl to buy the walnuts, and she had got nothing else to put them in, and the hat was handy; but if you think I take that as an excuse, you make a mistake."
"I wasn"t going to say that at all."
"Or else you"ll tell me that you can paste in a piece of white paper, so that the stains on the lining won"t show. Explanations, indeed!"
"And I wasn"t going to say that, either."
"I don"t care what you were going to say. I won"t hear it. There"s no explanation possible. For once I mean to take a strong line. You see that hat? I shall never wear it again!"
"I know that."
"No one shall wear it! I don"t care for the expense! If you choose to let that servant-girl ruin my hat, then that hat shall be ruined, and no mistake about it!"
I picked the hat up, and gave it one sound, savage kick. My foot went through it, and the walnuts flew all over the room. At the same moment I heard from the drawing-room a faint tink-tink-tink on the piano.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "_I picked the hat up, and gave it one sound, savage kick._"]