After a pause, he says, in a Sam Wellerish kind
of way: "I vent to the club this mornin', sir. There vorn't no
letters, sir." "Very good. Topping." "How's missis, sir?" "Pretty
well, Topping." "Glad to hear it, sir. My missis ain't wery well,
sir." "No!" "No, sir, she's a goin', sir, to have a hincrease wery
soon, and it makes her rather nervous, sir; and ven a young voman
gets at all down at sich a time, sir, she goes down wery deep, sir."
To this sentiment I reply affirmatively, and then he adds, as he
stirs the fire (as if he were thinking out loud), "Wot a mystery it
is! Wot a go is natur'!" With which scrap of philosophy, he
gradually gets nearer to the door, and so fades out of the room.
This same man asked me one day, soon after I came home, what Sir
John Wilson was. This is a friend of mine, who took our house and
servants, and everything as it stood, during our absence in America.
I told him an officer. "A wot, sir?" "An officer." And then, for
fear he should think I meant a police-officer, I added, "An officer
in the army." "I beg your pardon, sir," he said, touching his hat,
"but the club as I always drove him to wos the United Servants."
The real name of this club is the United Service, but I have no
doubt he thought it was a high-life-below-stairs kind of resort, and
that this gentleman was a retired butler or superannuated footman.
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