A GLIMPSE OF THE UNDER WORLD

T was a little dinner indeed, a dinner for eight only; and it was given one evening in March, in a spacious and handsome dwelling in Madison Avenue, high up on the slope of Murray Hill. The wide dining-room was at the rear of the house, and it had a broad butler's-pantry extending into the yard behind. The large kitchen was under the dining-room; and under the butler's-pantry was a room of the same size which the servants used as a parlor. In one corner of this sitting-room for the domestics was the dumb-waiter which connected with the pantry above, and in another corner was a spiral staircase which allowed the butler to descend swiftly to the kitchen in case of emergency. There was a table near the window of this servants' parlor, with a battered student-lamp on it; and around the table were grouped three or four chairs.

A whistle sounded gently in the kitchen, and the Swedish cook walked leisurely to the speaking-tube and whistled back. Then she listened, and heard the butler say, "They're all here now; I've got the oysters on the table, and I'm a-goin' in now to announce dinner to the madam. So you get that soup ready—do you hear?"

The cook did not deign to make any direct reply, but, as she left the speaking-tube and went back to the range, she said, loud enough to be heard by the servants in the sitting-room adjoining, "As though I did not know anything! I will never have another place if a black man is butler."

In the room under the pantry a sharp, wiry boy was grinning. "They're allus havin' spats, ain't they, them two? If I was Cato I wouldn't let no Dutch cook sass me, even if I was a nigger, would you?"

"Who is this young cub, when he's at 'ome?" asked the clean-shaven, trim-looking young British valet.

"He's Tim," answered the Irish laundress.

"I'm Tim," said the boy, indignantly, "that's who I am, and I'm as good as you are, too, for all you belong to a lord! And you needn't put on no frills with me, neither, for when I'm a year or two older I can lick ye!—see?"

"Don't ye mind the boy, Mr. Parsons," the Irish girl intervened. "He's no call here at all, at all. He'd run of an errand belike in the mornin' and does be sthrivin' to make himself useful. That's why they kept him here the night."

"I've got just as good a right here as he has," the boy declared, "and he doesn't come here after you either, Maggie—you're not his steady. It's that French Elise he is sparkin'."

"An' greatly I care if he is! Sparkin', in truth! Bad cess to yer impidence," said the pleasant-faced laundress, drawing herself up. "A man, is it? It's lashins and lavins of men I could have if I'd a mind."

Fortunately the cook called Tim at this juncture and gave him a chore to do; and so left the Irish girl and the young Englishman alone.

The valet had been standing until then with his hat and cane in his hand and his overcoat across his arm. Now he laid these things on the table and took his seat by the side of the comely Irishwoman.

"Mam'zelle," he began, "is a French girl, of course, and I never could abide a foreign lingo. Now it's a pleasure for me to hear you talk, Miss Maggie."

"Ah, do be aisy, now, Mr. Parsons," she returned, coquettishly.

"It's gospel truth," he rejoined. "I enjoy talkin' to you. You keep your eyes wide open and can always tell me what's goin' on!"

"Troth, can I?" replied the laundress. "I know which ind of the egg the chicken'll be after chippin'—every time."

"Then tell me who's dinin' 'ere to-night," the valet asked.

Before she could answer the whistle sounded faintly again, and the cook immediately brought in the green-turtle soup in the handsome silver tureen, and sent it up on the dumb-waiter. Then she returned at once to the kitchen.

"It's not a big dinner," the Irishwoman explained. "There's only eight of them. There's us three, isn't there?—Mr. and Mrs. Van Allen and Miss Ethel. Then there's your lord—and I'll go bail it's Miss Ethel he's after now? He'll be the lucky man if he gets her, too; it's a sweet angel she is."

"She won't be so unlucky to 'ave 'im neither," the Englishman returned, "mark that! She'll be Lady Stanyhurst, won't she? And my lord is a fine figure of a man, too!"

"Sure it isn't under the skin of any man that ever stepped to be worthy the likes of Miss Ethel!" said Maggie, looking at Parsons out of the corner of her eye.

"There ain't any girl in the States 'ere that wouldn't be proud to 'ave my lord," the valet retorted. "There's lots of 'em settin' their caps for 'im now. He can 'ave 'is pick, 'e can."

"The sorra cap Miss Ethel'll set for him or any man," the laundress declared. "The boy that wants her'll have to court her."

"I 'ave reason to believe that the marriage is arranged," Parsons asserted. "I 'ope—" then he paused, and with an effort he went on again: "I hope that 'er father is a warm man? He's good to give the girl a plum at least, I 'ope? We couldn't throw ourselves away on a girl who 'adn't a plum, you know."

"An' what might a plum be?" asked Maggie.

"A plum," the young Englishman explained, "is a 'undred thousand pounds—'alf a million dollars, isn't it?"

"It's a whole million Mr. Van Allen can give Miss Ethel," Maggie said, "and more, too, if he wanted to. By the same token, they do be after tellin' me he has one big building down-town somewhere—I don't know—where the tenants pay him a hundred thousand dollars a year; an' they pay it, too, regular, an' nivver an eviction from one year's end to the other."

The whistle shrilled out again, and the cook made haste to place on the dumb-waiter the dish containing the fillets of sea-bass.

A few minutes later Mlle. Elise, the French maid of Miss Van Allen, entered the servants' sitting-room, and was cordially greeted by Mr. Parsons. It appeared that the Frenchwoman had been detained in Mrs. Van Allen's room relieving the guests of their wraps.

"Zat ole maid, Miss Marlenspuyk—what devil of name it is—" said Elise, "she is a true grande dame; but that Mistress Playfair—oh! I cannot suffer her! She is—how you say—made up? stuck up?"

"It's both stuck up and med up she is," the Irish laundress declared. "She's that painted her own mother wouldn't know her. An' as for stuck up, her manners is that bad there isn't none of her girls will stay in her house the second month; they gets their bit of money and they goes. Sure my brother is coachman there, and it's seven years he's had the place."

"How can he rest zere," asked the French maid, "if she is so stuck up?"

"Ah, my brother is a steady lad, and they get on very well," Maggie returned. "He knows his place, and she knows her place, too. She never says nothin' to him, and he never says nothin' to her. An' it's a good job he has, an' he don't mean to let go of it. He keeps a still tongue in his head, Danny does; but there's months when, with his wages and with his board-wages and with what he makes on the feed, the place is worth more than a hundred dollars to him."

"It's as much as a man's place is worth sometimes to accept the commission you're entitled to," the valet remarked.

"Ah, but Danny's the boy!" the laundress responded, shrewdly. "It's too much he knows about Mrs. Playfair for him to lose the job; trust him for that! As long as he wants that place he can have it an' welcome; she won't never say nothin' to him."

"Is she a widow or is she divorced, zis Mistress Playfair?" asked the French maid.

"She's the wan an' the other," said the laundress, with a laugh. "Mr. Playfair, he took and died a week after the trial, barrin' a day."

"What's this I 'ear about your Mr. Van Allen and Mrs. Playfair?" Parsons inquired.

"Is there anything between them, do you think?"

The whistle was heard again, and the cook passed before them with a saddle of mutton; and for the moment the valet's question remained unanswered.

"Who is it they have to dinner, after all?" the laundress inquired. "There's our three and your lord and Miss Marlenspuyk and Mrs. Playfair—but that's sure only six. There was to be eight all out, I'm thinkin'. It's two more men they must have."

"I heard his lordship say that he expected to meet the Lord Bishop of Tuxedo," the Englishman remarked.

"And madame say zat ze judge would be here," said the French maid.

"Judge Gillespie?" asked the valet, with a certain interest.

"Yes," the Frenchwoman answered, "the Judge Gillespie. What does that make to you zat you jump like zat?"

"Oh, nothin', nothin' at all," returned Parsons, settling himself back in his chair with a snigger.

"Out with it!" cried the Irish girl. "Don't be grinnin' all night there like a stuck pig! Out with it—I see it's on the end of your tongue."

"But yes—but yes," urged the maid, "what is it you have to laugh?"

"Really," the valet began, "I don't know that I ought to say anything 'ere in this 'ouse, you know—house, I mean. But I 'ave been told that this 'ere Judge Gillespie is a very great friend of Mrs. Van Allen's. Mind, I don't say there's anything wrong in it, you know. I only tell you what I 'ave 'eard tell myself in society 'ere and there. You see this ain't the only 'ouse I visit in New York, not by a long shot it ain't. And knowin' I visit 'ere, why, naturally, you see, my other friends tell me the news, you know—the news about the goin's on 'ere, you know."

The Irish laundress and the French maid looked at each other for a moment, and then both laughed.

"It's not outside they get the first news, is it?" the laundress inquired.

Apparently the maid was also going to make a remark, but she changed her mind as the cook again came to the dumb-waiter with the dish of little silver saucepans containing terrapin.

The valet was somewhat puzzled by the failure of his two attempts to open the family cupboard of the host and hostess for an inspection of the skeletons it might contain.

"I don't know how she has them seated at the table," Maggie declared.

"Of course, his lordship took her in," the Englishman declared. "A earl 'as precedence of a judge or a bishop."

"I'd like to have a look at that lordship of yours," the Irishwoman said, as she rose to her feet. "I'll slip up the stairs there, and maybe I can get a glimpse of 'em through the door an' no one a ha'p'orth the wiser. Is it a young man your lordship is?"

"His lordship is a young man yet," the valet replied.

"I know what that means," the laundress answered. "If he's a young man yet, I'll go bail he hasn't a hair between him an' heaven. An' to think that our Miss Ethel here is to take up with a poor hairless cratur like that. Well, well, there's no accountin' for tastes! Maybe I'll marry a Dutchman myself one of these days."

And with that she began to climb the spiral staircase in the corner of the room.

"What sort of a man is he, your milord?" asked the Frenchwoman.

"He is not a bad sort at all," the Englishman answered. "Your young lady might do worse than 'ave 'im, you know—have him, I mean. I won't say but that 'e's been a bit fast in 'is time, you know; but that's nothin' to her now, is it? 'E's sowed his wild oats long ago, and 'e's ready to marry now and settle down."

"He is zen—défraíchi—how you say—worn? your milord?" the Frenchwoman went on. "And mademoiselle is an angel of candor. Zey would give her le bon Dieu wizout confession."

"Angel or no angel," returned Mr. Parsons, "there isn't any better catch in the three kingdoms than 'is lordship to-day. 'E's a earl, isn't 'e? And then there's the castle! Your young lady wouldn't be in a 'urry to let 'im go if she'd only seen the castle, now!"

"Mademoiselle has seen ze castle," was the answer.

"Well, I'll be damned!" said the valet.

"But yes," the French maid explained. "Last summer, in London, your milord was presented to mademoiselle, and he began to make his court. Fifteen days after, when we were at Leamington, mademoiselle and I, we go see your castle."

"It's a tip-topper now, ain't it?" he asked. "There's sometimes twenty and thirty of us in the servants' 'all, and there's goin's on, and larks, and all manner of sport. If this match comes off, now, between 'is lordship and your young lady, will you come with her or stay here with her mother?"

"Never of the life do I quit mademoiselle," the Frenchwoman responded.

"Then I'll 'ope to 'ave the honor of introducin' you into the best society at the castle whenever you come over," urged Mr. Parsons.

The Irish laundress now began to descend the spiral stairs. The cook also came into the room and went towards the dumb-waiter, carrying a silver platter, on which shook and shone a dozen little jellied cones.

"An' what might that be in thrimbles like that?" asked the Irishwoman, with curiosity.

"Pâté de foie gras en aspic," the cook responded, curtly, sending up the dish and then returning silently to the kitchen.

"Patti's photograph?" repeated the laundress. "Do ye mind the impidence of her, tellin' me a lie like that?"

The English valet looked at the French maid and laughed. Then he explained, patronizingly:

"Patty de four grass, as we call it in French—not Patti's photograph. It's a delicacy, and it's made of goose livers."

"Then why couldn't that Dutch cook have said so?" the laundress asked, indignantly. "I've as good a right to know about a goose as ever she has. I misdoubt she was that poor where she came from they had never the grass of a goose to their cabin."

"Did you see 'is lordship?" asked the valet.

"I did that," the Irish girl replied, "an' what did I tell you about him? His head has grown through his hair! There's been good and bad harvests since he was young, I'm thinkin'—and it's mighty quare he looks about his eyes, too. It'll be a poor day for Miss Ethel when she marries a bald-headed ould runt like that, for all he's a lord!"

"Oh, I say, Miss Maggie; you must not speak so disrespectful of his lordship," Parsons insisted; "really, now, you mustn't."

"It's that Mrs. Playfair 'ud be the match for him, I'm thinkin'," said Maggie. "It's a bold-faced creature she is, an' no more clothes on her than ain't decent anyway. And then, how she looked at Mr. Van Allen and then at the bishop; and how she talked—I'd no patience with her. Do ye mind what it was I heard her say now?"

"How could we know what you 'eard her say?" the valet responded, impatiently.

"Sure, amn't I tellin' ye?" the Irish girl returned. "She was talkin' to the bishop, and she says, says she. 'The judge is a better man than you, bishop,' she says, 'leastwise he makes more people happy,' she says. 'How so?' says the bishop, says he. 'This way,' she says; 'when you marry a couple you make two people happy,' she says, 'an' when the judge divorces a couple he makes four people happy,' she says. Miss Ethel and the old lady with the white hair, they said nothin', but the rest of them laughed."

What further fragments of the conversation at the dinner-table up-stairs Maggie had been able to gather during her brief visit to the butler's-pantry could not then be made known to the other domestics, for Tim came slouching into the sitting-room.

"Say, Maggie," he began, "didn't you hear that ring at the bell? That's your feller—I seen him. He's out at the gate now."

"Is it the letter-man you mean?" asked Maggie, adjusting her hair as she passed the looking-glass.

"Ah, go on," returned Tim, impatiently, "what t'ell are you givin' us? How many fellers do you want, say?"

After Maggie had chased Tim out of the room, the Swedish cook went to the dumb-waiter once more to send up the four smoking canvas-backs that lay luxuriously on their cushions of fried hominy.

The French maid and the English valet continued to chat, discussing chiefly the personal peculiarities of the members of the households in which they had served. His former masters Parsons was willing enough to find fault with, but Lord Stanyhurst he seemed to think it a point of honor to defend. Mrs. Van Allen the Frenchwoman had no high opinion of, nor of Mr. Kortright Van Allen; but of their daughter, Miss Ethel Van Allen, she could not say too much in praise.

"I told that wild Irish girl that the marriage was arranged," said Parsons, "and I'm sure I 'ope so with all my heart, for 'is lordship needs money badly—I don't mind tellin' you, mam'zelle, 'e 'asn't paid me my wages this six months, not that I'd demean myself by askin' for them. But is it really settled, after all?—that's what I'd like to know."

"I zink so," the Frenchwoman responded; "you see, mademoiselle is not happy here. Monsieur and madame are at drawn knives. Zey have not spoken since two years."

"Mr. and Mrs. Van Allen don't speak to each other?" asked Parsons, with great interest. "But they must be speaking to each other there at dinner now."

"Oh, at dinner, yes," the French maid explained; "in the world, yes, zey talk zemselves. But at ze house, never a word. Zat is so sad for mademoiselle, is it not? It is not remarkable zat she marry herself with anybody to get out of ze house."

"Oh, ho!" rejoined the valet, "I see, I see! But if that's the way she's been brought up, you know, I don't believe she will 'it it off with 'is lordship."

"If he makes her not happy, your milord—" began the maid, forcibly, "but he must. He must render her happy, for she will have nobody to go to after ze marriage except her husband."

"Whatever do you mean by that?" asked Parsons, a little suspiciously.

"I know what I mean," she responded. "Monsieur and madame only attend till mademoiselle is married, and zen zey are divorced. Zey don't tell me zat, no—but I know."

"Yes," the valet admitted, "it ain't so very 'ard to find out a thing like that."

"And I know more yet," added the French maid. "I am not blind, am I? I can see that two and two make four, is it not? Zen, I tell you zat after ze marriage of mademoiselle, monsieur and madame are divorced, zat is one zing. Zen madame will marry zat Judge Gillespie, and monsieur will marry zat Madame Playfair—you see!"

"That would be a rum start, now, wouldn't it?" was the only comment of Parsons.

At this moment the portly form of Cato, the black butler, was seen descending the staircase in the corner of the room.

As soon as the aged negro's white head was visible he paused, and leaning over the light iron railing he addressed himself to the young Englishman.

"Misto' Parsons," he said, solemnly, "yo' lord knows a good thing when he gets it, sah! He tasted my celery salad, and he said to Mrs. Van Allen that he hadn't never eaten no better salad than that, sah, and I don't believe he never did, neither!"

So saying he slowly withdrew up-stairs again, as the cook advanced to the dumb-waiter carrying the Nesselrode pudding.

(1896.)