He drummed with his fingers on the cloth for a few moments, and went on—­

“One has a natural disposition to forgive butlers—­Pharaoh, for instance, felt it.  There hovers around butlers an atmosphere in which common ethics lose their pertinence.  But mine was a rare bird—­a black swan among butlers!  He was more than a butler:  he was a quick and brightly gifted man.  Of the accuracy of his taste, and the unusual scope of his endeavour, you will be able to form some opinion when I assure you he modelled himself upon me.”

I bowed, over my brandy.

“I am a scholar:  yet I employed him to read aloud to me, and derived pleasure from his intonation.  I talk with refinement:  yet he learned to answer me in language as precise as my own.  My cast-off garments fitted him not more irreproachably than did my amenities of manner.  Divest him of his tray, and you would find his mode of entering a room hardly distinguishable from my own—­the same urbanity, the same alertness of carriage, the same superfine deference towards the weaker sex.  All—­all my idiosyncrasies I saw reflected in him; and can you doubt that I was gratified?  He was my alter ego—­which, by the way, makes it harder for me to pardon his behaviour with the cook.”

“Look here,” I broke in; “you want a new butler?”

“Oh, you really grasp that fact, do you?” he retorted.

“Why, then,” said I, “let me cease to be your burglar and let me continue here as your butler.”

He leant back, spreading out the fingers of each hand on the table’s edge.

“Believe me,” I went on, “you might do worse.  I have been in my time a demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, and retain some Greek and Latin.  I’ll undertake to read the Fathers with an accent that shall not offend you.  My taste in wine is none the worse for having been formed in other men’s cellars.  Moreover, you shall engage the ugliest cook in Christendom, so long as I’m your butler.  I’ve taken a liking to you—­ that’s flat—­and I apply for the post.”

“I give forty pounds a year,” said he.

“And I’m cheap at that price.”

He filled up his glass, looking up at me while he did so with the air of one digesting a problem.  From first to last his face was grave as a judge’s.

“We are too impulsive, I think,” was his answer, after a minute’s silence; “and your speech smacks of the amateur.  You say, ’Let me cease to be your burglar and let me be your butler.’  The aspiration is respectable; but a man might as well say, ’Let me cease to write sermons, let me paint pictures.’  And truly, sir, you impress me as no expert even in your present trade.”

“On the other hand,” I argued, “consider the moderation of my demands; that alone should convince you of my desire to turn over a new leaf.  I ask for a month’s trial; if at the end of that time I don’t suit, you shall say so, and I’ll march from your door with nothing in my pocket but my month’s wages.  Be hanged, sir! but when I reflect on the amount you’ll have to pay to get me to face to-night’s storm again, you seem to be getting off dirt cheap!” cried I, slapping my palm on the table.