Christmas Penny Readings Part 29

But Mr Dodd did not reply, he only limped about the room with anguish depicted upon every feature, while Mr Pouter tremblingly went on with his work.

"There!" exclaimed Mary, upon reaching the kitchen, "I declare if I'll stop. There's nothing but messing going on from morning till night.

It's too bad! for there's that Pouter again, chipping and hammering, and sending the dust a-flying all over the room worse than ever."

"What was all that noise?" croaked Cook, a very red-faced and red-armed lady.

"Carpenter dropped one of his tools on master's toe, and sent him a-hopping about the room like a singed monkey," exclaimed Mary, in a tone of the deepest disgust. And it must be said that this was a very disrespectful and doubtful simile, for the odds were strongly against Mary Housemaid having seen a monkey suffering from the effects of fire.

"What's the carpenter a-doing of?" said Cook, who was busy making paste, and now paused to have her question answered, and to rub her itching nose with the rolling-pin.

"Why," exclaimed Cook's mortal enemy, the b.u.t.tons, "master said as old Pouter was to come and fix a jam--something or other."

"There, now, you be off into the hairy and finish them shoes," exclaimed Mrs Cook, fiercely. "n.o.body arst your opinion; so come, now, be off!"

b.u.t.tons did "be off," for under the circ.u.mstances it would have been rash to have stayed, since Mrs Cook was going at him, rolling-pin in hand, with the very evident intention of using it in the same way as her friend Q1866 did his truncheon. But b.u.t.tons was not going to be bundled out of the kitchen that way "he knowed," so he took his revenge by flattening his nose against the kitchen-window, just where he would be most in his culinary tyrant's light; and then in pantomimic show he began to deride Mrs Cook's actions, till that lady rushed out at him, when he retreated to his den beneath the pavement, and went on with his work for quite five minutes, then, with a shoe covering one hand and a brush in the other, he made his appearance at the kitchen-door, to deliver the following mystic announcement:--

"It worn't a jam, it were a preserver," but he retreated again with great rapidity to avoid the paste pin launched at his head by the irate cook, but the utensil only struck the closed door, when Master b.u.t.tons again inserted his head to howl out a derisive "Boo-o-o," and then disappeared till dinner time.

But matters progressed so satisfactorily up stairs, that by five o'clock Mr Pouter departed, basket on back, with half a yard of saw sticking out, to tickle and scratch those whom he met, to whom on the pavement he was just such an agreeable obstacle to encounter as a British war chariot, with its scythed axletrees, must have been to all concerned.

But Mr Dodd was placid, the door worked beautifully, and he determined to have every other door in the house seen to and re-adjusted. So Mr Dodd dined, and at last retired to bed, serene and happy in his expression.

That very night something happened.

It was midnight, and, save when the noise of some cab, conveying the Christmas folk home, could be heard, all was still. But there were voices to be heard in the attic of Number Nine. There was a candle on a chair beside the bed, and Cook and Mary were sitting up, the one listening, while the other slowly waded through the thrilling plot of the "to be continued" tale in the Penny Mystifier.

The night was cold, and shawls thrown over shoulders was the mode, while slowly see-sawing her body backwards and forwards in bed, Mary, after once reading, went back and epitomised the tale for Cook's benefit, that lady not having been very clear upon two or three points.

"Then," said Mary, "when she finds as her par won't let her marry De Belleville, she sits by the open winder, with the snow rivalling her arm's whiteness, and a lamenting of her hard fate, and it's quite dark, and her lover comes and begs of her to fly with him."

"Go in a fly," said Cook, approvingly.

"No! no! go off with him," said Mary.

"Ah! I see," said Cook, "go on."

"And, after being begged and prayed a deal, she says as she will, and he fetches the ladder; and, just as she's done falling on his neck and weeping, a mysterious voice says--"

"Oh!" cried the domestics in horrified tones as they clung together, for in the stillness of the night there was a fearful cry from below stairs, followed by the noise of something heavy falling.

"It's the biler busted, Mary!" shivered and sobbed the cook.

"Oh no, it's master being murdered," gasped Mary; "I know it is.

Ennery! Ennery! Ennery!" she cried, banging at the frail part.i.tion wall to arouse b.u.t.tons, who at last condescended to wake up and knock in answer.

"Oh! do get up and go down; there's something the matter!" cried Mary and Cook together.

"Oh, ah! you go," came back in m.u.f.fled tones from the sweet youth.

"Oh, do go, there's a good boy!" said Cook sweetly; "do go down and see."

"Ah! I dessay," said b.u.t.tons, recalling the morning's treatment.

A compromise was at length effected, and the three domestics stood upon the top of the staircase gazing down, while the moon looked sideways at them through the skylight.

"Ah! I see you!" cried Cook to an imaginary burglar. "You'd better go: here's the perlice a-coming," which was a great fib of Mrs Cook's, for there was not a policeman near; though, from the lady's tones and confident way of speaking, it might have been imagined that there was a police barracks on the roof, just within call.

"Cook!" cried a faint voice.

"There. I know'd it was!" cried Mary. "It's master, half killed."

"Here, help! come down!" came up again faintly.

"Oh! we dussen't, sir!" chorused Mr Dodd's servants.

But at length b.u.t.tons was pushed forward, and, a landing at a time, the timid trio slowly descended to the a.s.sistance of poor Mr Dodd, whom they found half-stunned and bleeding upon the dining-room door mat; but warm water, diachylon, and half a gla.s.s of brandy revived Mr Dodd so that he was able to re-send his servants to bed, and then retire himself, and ponder upon the advisability of having mechanical life-preservers attached to the lower room doors, since the experimental affair fixed that day by Mr Pouter had proved so awkward, when its owner had hurriedly gone down to fetch the letters left upon the dining-room chimney-piece; though if Mr Dodd had been a burglar, the effect would have been most effectual as well as striking.

"No," said Mr Dodd, as he turned his aching head to find an easier spot upon the pillow. "No, I think bells are the best after all."

Next morning Mr Dodd was too ill to rise, and many of his Christmas-boxing friends who had omitted to call the previous day, went away empty. Mr Pouter's bill has decreased yearly, for Mr Dodd's faith has been shaken in patents; while as to spring-guns in grounds, and preservers set with springs on doors, surely it is better to suffer imaginary dangers than to run real risk, for really it cannot be pleasant to be caught in your own trap.