"Your father left sharp orders as to being
disturbed before 8 A. M."
"As it is now 9:30," I observed coldly, "there has been time enough
lost. I am HORS DE COMBAT, or I would have atended to it long ago."
He had drawn a stand beside the bed, and I now sat up and looked at my
Tray. The orange was cut through the wrong way!
Had I needed proof, dear log or journal, I had it there. For any BUTLER
knows how to cut a breakfast orange.
"William," I said, as he was going out, "how long have you been a
Butler?"
Perhaps this was a foolish remark as being calculated to put him on his
guard. But "out of the fullness of the Heart the Mouth speaketh." It was
said. I could not withdraw my words.
He turned suddenly and looked at me.
"Me, miss?" he said in a far to inocent tone. "Why, I don't know
exactly." He then smiled and said: "There are some who think I am not
much of a Butler now."
"Just a word of advise, William," I said in a signifacant tone. "A real
Butler cuts an orange the other way. I am telling you, because although
having grape fruit mostly, some morning some one may order an orange,
and one should be very careful THESE DAYS."
Shall I ever forget his face as he went out? No, never. He knew that I
knew, and was one to stand no nonsense. But I had put him on his guard.
It was to be a battle of Intellagence, his brains against mine.
Although regretful at first of having warned him, I feel now that it
is as well. I am one who likes to fight in the open, not as a serpent
coiled in the grass and pretending, like the one in the Bible, to be a
friend.
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