Mollie and the Unwiseman Part 5

Yoors Trooly, THE UNWISEMAN.

P. S. Ennyboddy violating these rules will be scolded. Yoors Tooly,

THE UNWISEMAN.

Whistlebinkie was rolling on the floor convulsed with laughter by the time Mollie finished reading these rules. He knew enough about house-keeping to know how delightful they were, and if the Unwiseman could have seen him he would doubtless have been very much pleased at his appreciation.

"The funny part of it all is, though," said Mollie, "that the poor old man doesn't keep a cook at all, but does all his own housework."

"Let's see what kind of a dining-room he has got," said Whistlebinkie, recovering from his convulsion. "I wonder which way it is."

"It must be in there to the right," said Mollie. "That is, it must if that sign in the pa.s.sage-way means anything. Don't you see, Whistlebinkie, it says: 'This way to the dining-room,' and under it it has 'Caution: meals must not be served in the parlor'?"

"So it has," said Whistlebinkie, reading the sign. "Let's go in there."

So the two little strangers walked into the dining-room, and certainly if the kitchen was droll in the matter of placards, the dining-room was more so, for directly over the table and suspended from the chandelier were these

RULES FOR GUESTS.

Guests will please remember to remove their hats before sitting down at the tabel.

Soup will not be helped more than three times to any guest, no matter who.

It is forbidding for guests to criticize the cooking, or to converse with the waiteress.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Guest's will kindly not make fun of the host."]

Guest's will kindly not contradict or make fun of their host, since he is very irritable and does not like to be contradicted or made fun of. Guests will oblige their host by not asking for anything that is not on the bill of fare. In a private house like this it would be very awkward to have to serve guests with fried potatoes at a time when ice-cream or mince pie has been ordered.

Horses and wheelbarrows are not aloud in this dining-room under any circ.u.mstances whatever.

Neither must cows or hay scales be brought here. Guests bringing their own olives will be charged extra. Also their own a.s.salted ammonds. Spoons, platters, and gravy boats taken from the table must be paid for at market rates for articles so taken away.

Any guest caught violating any or all of these rules will not be aloud any dessert whatever; and a second voilition will deprive them of a forth helping to roast beef and raisins.

Yoors Tooly, THE UNWISEMAN.

N. G. Any guest desiring to subst.i.tute his own rules for the above is at libbity to do so, provided he furnishes his own dining-room.

"They're the most ridiculous rules I ever heard of," said Mollie, with a grin so broad that it made her ears uncomfortable. "The idea of having to tell anybody not to wear a hat at the table! He might just as well have made a rule forbidding people to throw plates on the floor."

"I dessay he would have, if he'd thought of it," returned Whistlebinkie.

"But just look at these rules for the waitress. They are worse than the others." Then Whistlebinkie read off the rules the Unwiseman had made for the waitress, as follows:

RULES FOR THE WAITERESS.

1. Iced water must never be served boiling, nor under any circ.u.mstances must ice-cream come to the tabel fried to a crisp.

2. Waiteresses caught upsetting the roast beef on a guest's lap will be charged for the beef at the rate of $1.00 a pound, and will have to go to bed without her brekfist.

3. All cakes, except lady-fingers, must be served in the cake basket. The lady-fingers must be served in finger bowls, whether this is what the waiteress is used to or not. This is my dining-room, and I am the one to make the rules for it.

4. All waiteresses must wear caps. Their caps must be lace caps, and not yotting caps, tennis caps, or gun caps. The caps must be worn on the head, and not on the hands or feet. All waiteresses caught voilating this rule will not be allowed any pie for eight weeks.

5. Meals must not be served until they are ready, and such silly jokes as putting an empty soup tureen on the table for the purpose of fooling me will be looked upon with disfavor and not laughed at.

6. Waiteresses must never invite their friends here to take dinner with me unless I am out, and they mustn't do it then either, because this is my dining-room, and I can wear it out quick enough without any outside help.

7. Waiteresses must not whistle while waitering on the tabel, because it isn't proper that they should. Besides, girls can't whistle, anyhow.

8. At all meals dessert must be served at every other course. In serving a dinner this course should be followed:

1. Pie.

2. Soup.

3. Custard.

4. Roast Beef.

5. Ice-cream.

6. Sallad.

7. Pudding.

8. Coffee.

9. More Pudding.

9. In case there is not enough of anything to go around more will be sent for at the waiteresses' expense, because the chances are she has been tasting it, which she hadn't any business to do.

10. To discourage waiteresses in losing spoons, and knives, and forks, any waiteress caught losing a spoon or a knife and a fork will have the price of two spoons, two knives, and two forks substracted off of her next month's wages.

Yoors Tooly, THE UNWISEMAN.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Riteing rules isn't easy work."]

N. G. All waiteresses who don't like these rules would better apply for some other place somewhere else, because I'm not going to take the trouble to get up a lot of good rules like these and then not have them obeyed. Riteing rules isn't easy work.

"Well I declare!" said Mollie, when they had finished reading. "I don't wonder he has to live in his little old house all by himself. I don't believe he'd get anybody to stay here a minute, if those rules had to be minded."

"Oh, I don't know," said Whistlebinkie. "They all seem reasonable enough."

"I think I'll take 'em down and show them to my mamma," said Mollie, reaching out to do as she said.

"No, no, don't do that," said Whistlebinkie. "That wouldn't be right.

They are his property, and it would never do for you to steal them."

"That's so," said Mollie. "I guess you are right."

"If you want to steal something why don't you do as he asked you to?"

put in Whistlebinkie.

"What did he ask me to do?"