Mrs. Maggs hasn't a sittin' room of her own
where she and the butler and the nurse can have their tea in peace or
entertain guests, but she sets two tables in the servants' hall, and a
pretty time she has of it.
"The kitchen maid and the laundress's assistant wait on the first table;
but one day when, the maid of one of Miss Ponsonby's friends comin' down
over late, she was served _with_ instead o' _by_ them, she gave Mrs.
Maggs the 'orriblest settin' down, as not knowin' her business in puttin'
a lady's lady with servants' servants, the same which Mrs. Maggs does
know perfectly (accidents bein' unpreventable), bein' child of Lord
Peacock's steward and his head nurse, and swallowin' it all in with her
mother's milk, so to speak, not borrowin' it second hand as some of the
great folks on the Bluffs themselves do from their servants, not feelin'
sure of the kerrect thing, yet desirin' so to do. Mrs. Maggs, poor body,
she has more mess with that servants' hall first table than with all the
big dinners the master gives.
"'Mrs. Corkle,' says she, bein' used to that name, besides Corkle bein'
kin to her husband, 'what I sets before my own household, as it were,
they leaves or they eats, it's one to me; but company's got to be handled
different, be it upstairs or down, for the name of the 'ouse, but when
Mr. Jollie, the French valet that comes here frequent with the master's
partner, wants dripped coffee and the fat scraped clean from his chop
shank, else the flavour's spoiled for him, and Bruce the mistress'
brother's man wants boiled coffee, and thick fat left on his breakfast
ham, what stands between my poor 'ead and a h'assleyum? that's what I
wants to know.
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