Bradley began it.  “I didn’t know you’d changed from women to men servants, Perkins?”

“Yes,” said Thaddeus “we’ve changed.”

“Rather good change, don’t you think?”

“Splendid,” said Phillips.  “That fellow served the dinner like a prince.”

“I don’t believe he’s any more than a duke, though,” said Bradley.  “His manner was quite ducal—­in fact, too ducal, if Perkins will let me criticise.  He made me feel like a poor, miserable, red-blooded son of the people.  I wanted an olive, and, by Jove, I didn’t dare ask for it.”

“That wasn’t his fault,” said Robinson, with a laugh.  “You forget that you live in a country where red blood is as good as blue.  Where did you get him, Thaddeus?”

Thaddeus looked like a rat in a corner with a row of cats to the fore.

“Oh!—­we—­er—­we got him from—­dear me!  I never can remember.  Mrs. Perkins can tell you, though,” he stammered.  “She looks after the menagerie.”

“What’s his name?” asked Phillips.

Thaddeus’s mind was a blank.  He could not for the life of him think what name a butler would be likely to have, but in a moment he summoned up nerve enough to speak.

“Grimmins,” he said, desperately.

“Sounds like a Dickens’ character,” said Robinson.  “Does he cost you very much?”

“Oh no—­not so very much,” said Thaddeus, whose case was now so desperate that he resolved to put a stop to it all.  Unfortunately, his method of doing so was not by telling the truth, but by a flight of fancy in which he felt he owed it to Bessie to indulge.

“No—­he doesn’t cost much,” he repeated, boldly.  “Fact is, he is a man we’ve known for a great many years.  He—­er—­he used to be butler in my grandfather’s house in Philadelphia, and—­er—­and I was there a great deal of the time as a boy, and Grimmins and I were great friends.  When my grandfather died Grimmins disappeared, and until last month I never heard a word of him, and then he wrote to me stating that he was out of work and poor as a fifty-cent table-d’hote dinner, and would like employment at nominal wages if he could get a home with it.  We were just getting rid of our waitress, and so I offered Grimmins thirty a month, board, lodging, and clothes.  He came on; I gave him one of my old dress-suits, set him to work, and there you are.”

“I thought you said a minute ago Mrs. Perkins got him?” said Bradley, who is one of those disagreeable men with a memory.

“I thought you were talking about the cook,” said Thaddeus, uneasily.  “Weren’t you talking about the cook?”

“No; but we ought to have been,” said Phillips, with enthusiasm.  “She’s the queen of cooks.  What do you pay her?”

“Sixteen,” said Thaddeus, glad to get back on the solid ground of truth once more.

“What?” cried Phillips.  “Sixteen, and can cook like that?  Take me down and introduce me, will you, Perkins?  I’d like to offer her seventeen to come and cook for me.”