""Mary!" gasped Mrs. Bradley."
"The jewel?" asked Bessie.
"The same," returned Thaddeus, with a smile. "She was the jewel, alas! now deprived of her former glorious setting.
""What"s the matter with Mary?" asked Bradley.
""She"s been behaving outrageously. I found her this morning," said Mrs. Bradley, "rummaging through my escritoire, throwing things all over the floor; and when I remonstrated she said she was looking for a sheet of paper on which to write a letter. I told her she should have asked me for it, and she replied impertinently that she never asked favors of anybody. I told her to leave the room, and she declined to do it, picking up a sofa-pillow and throwing it at me.
I was so overcome I nearly fainted.""
"I should think she would have been overcome! Such impudence!" said Bessie.
"Humph!" said Thaddeus. "That isn"t a marker to what followed.
Why, according to Mrs. Bradley"s story, that escaped Koh-i-noor called her all sorts of horrible names, threw an empty ink-pot at a photograph of Bradley himself, that stood on the mantel, and then, grabbing up a whisk-broom, literally swept everything else there was on the mantel off to the floor with it. This done, she began to overturn chairs with an ardor born of temper, apparently; and, finally, Mrs. Bradley got so frightened that she ran from the room, and the jewel started in pursuit. Straight to the nursery ran the lady of the house--for there was where the children were, playing house, no doubt, with little idea that jewels sometimes deteriorated. Once in the nursery, Mrs. Bradley slammed the door to, locked it, and then, still fearful, rolled before it the bureau and the children"s cribs. After that the actions of the jewel could only be surmised. The door was pounded and the atmosphere of the hall was rent with violent harangues; then a hurried step was heard as the jewel presumably sailed below-stairs; then crashings were heard--crashings which might have indicated the smashing of windows, of picture-gla.s.s, of mirrors, chairs, and other household appurtenances, after which, Mrs. Bradley observed, all became still."
"Mercy! what a trial!" said Bessie. "And was she locked up in the nursery all day?"
"From twelve until we rescued her at a little after six," said Thaddeus. "Then Bradley and I started out to find the jewel, if possible, and I regret to say that it was possible. We found her asleep on the kitchen table, and Bradley hadn"t any more sense than to try and wake her up. He succeeded too well. For the next ten minutes she was the most wide-awake woman you ever saw, and she kept us wide awake too. The minute she opened her eyes and saw us standing before her, she sprang to her feet and made a rush at Bradley, for which he was totally unprepared, the consequence of which was that in an instant he found himself sitting in a very undignified manner, for the head of the house, on the kitchen floor, trying to collect his somewhat scattered faculties.
"When she had persuaded Bradley to take a seat, she turned to shower her attentions on me. I jumped to one side, but she managed to grab hold of my vest, and hence its b.u.t.tonless condition. By this time Bradley was on his feet again, and, having had the temerity to face his jewel the second time, he again came off second best, losing one of the b.u.t.ton-holes of his collar in the melee. I rushed in from behind, and flirtatiously, perhaps, tried to grab hold of her hands, coming off the field minus a necktie, but plus that picturesque scratch you see on my nose. Stopping a moment to count up my profit and loss, I let Bradley make the next a.s.sault, which resulted in a drawn battle, Bradley losing his watch and his temper, the jewel losing her breath and her balance. So it went on for probably three or four minutes longer, though we certainly acquired several years of experience in those short minutes, until finally we managed to conquer her. This done, we locked her up in a closet."
"Had she been at the cooking-sherry?" asked Bessie.
"We thought so at first, and Bradley sent for a policeman," said Thaddeus "but when he came we found the poor creature too exhausted to be moved, and in a very short while Mrs. Bradley decided that it was a case for a doctor and not for a police-justice. So the doctor was summoned, and we waited, dinnerless, in the dining-room for his verdict, and finally it came. BRADLEY"S JEWEL WAS INSANE!"
"Insane!" echoed Bessie.
"Mad as a hatter," replied Thaddeus.
"Well, I declare!" said Bessie, thoughtfully. "But, Thaddeus, do you know I am not surprised."
"Why, my dear?" he asked.
"Because, Teddy, she was too perfect to be in her right mind."
And Thaddeus, after thinking it all over, was inclined to believe that Bessie was in the right.
"Yes, Bess, she was perfect--perfect in the way she did her work, perfect in the way she smashed things, and nowhere did she more successfully show the thoroughness with which she did everything than when it came to removing the b.u.t.tons from my vest. Isn"t it too bad that the only perfect servant that ever lived should turn out to be a hopeless maniac? But I must hurry off, or I"ll miss my train."
"You are not going down to town to-day?" asked Bessie.
"To-day, above all other days, am I going down," returned Thaddeus.
"I am enough of a barbarian to be unwilling to lose the chance of seeing Bradley, and asking him how he and his jewel get along."
"Thaddeus!"
"Why not, my dear?"
"It would be too mean for anything."
"Well, perhaps you are right. I guess I won"t. But he has rubbed it into me so much about our domestics that I hate to lose the chance to hit back."
"Has he?" said Bessie, her face flushing indignantly, and, it may be added, becomingly. "In that case, perhaps, you might--ha! ha!-- perhaps you might telegraph and ask him."
And Thaddeus did so. As yet he has received no reply.
UNEXPECTED POMP AT THE PERKINS"S
"My dear," said Thaddeus, one night, as he and Mrs. Perkins entered the library after dinner, "that was a very good dinner to-night.
Don"t you think so?"
"All except the salmon," said Bessie, with a smile.
"Salmon?" echoed Thaddeus. "Salmon? I did not see any salmon."
"No," said Bessie, "that was just the trouble. It didn"t come up, although it was in the house before dinner, I"m certain. I saw it arrive."
"Ellen couldn"t have known you intended it for dinner," said Thaddeus.
"Yes, she knew it was for dinner," returned Bessie, "but she made a mistake as to whose dinner it was for. She supposed it was bought for the kitchen-table, and when I went down-stairs to inquire about it a few minutes ago it was fulfilling its a.s.sumed mission n.o.bly.
There wasn"t much left but the tail and one fin."
"Well!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Thaddeus, "I call that a pretty cool proceeding.
Did you give her a talking to?"
"No," Bessie replied, shortly; "I despise a domestic fuss, so I pretended I"d gone down to talk about breakfast. We"ll have breakfast an hour or two earlier to-morrow, dear."
"What"s that for?" queried Thaddeus, his eyes open wide with astonishment. "You are not going shopping, are you?"
"No, Teddy, I"m not; but when I got downstairs and realized that Ellen had made the natural mistake of supposing the fish was for the down-stairs dinner, this being Friday, I had to think of something to say, and nothing would come except that we wanted breakfast at seven instead of at eight. It doesn"t do to have servants suspect you of spying upon them, nor is it wise ever to appear fl.u.s.tered--so mamma says--in their presence. I avoided both by making Ellen believe I"d come down to order an early breakfast."
"You are a great Bessie," said Thaddeus, with a laugh. "I admire you more than ever, my dear, and to prove it I"d get up to breakfast if you"d ordered it at 1 A.M."
"You"d be more likely to stay up to it," said Bessie, "and then go to bed after it."
"There"s your Napoleonic mind again," said Thaddeus. "I should never have thought of that way out of it. But, Bess," he continued, "when I was praising to-night"s dinner I had a special object in view. I think Ellen cooks well enough now to warrant us in giving a dinner, don"t you?"
"Well, it all depends on what we have for dinner," said Bessie.
"Ellen"s biscuits are atrocious, I think, and you know how lumpy the oatmeal always is."
"Suppose we try giving a dinner with the oatmeal and biscuit courses left out?" suggested Thaddeus, with a grin.
Bessie"s eyes twinkled. "You make very bright after-dinner speeches, Teddy," she said. "I don"t see why we can"t have a dinner with nothing but pretty china, your sparkling conversation, and a few flowers strewn about. It would be particularly satisfactory to me."
"They"re not all angels like you, my dear," Thaddeus returned.