City of New York. His wife, with the customary British scorn for Americans, developed snobbish tendencies that rather alarmed Mr. Cricklewick at the outset of his business career in New York, but which ultimately produced the most remarkable results.
Almost before he was safely out of the habit of saying "thank you" when it wasn't at all necessary to say it, his wife had him down at Hot Springs, Virginia, for a month in the fall season, where, because of his exceptionally mellifluous English accent and a stateliness he had never been able to overcome, he was looked upon by certain Anglo-maniacs as a real and unmistakable "toff."
Cricklewick had been brought up in, or on, the very best of society. From his earliest days as third groom in the Camelford ménage to the end of his reign as major-domo, he had been in a position to observe and assimilate the manners of the elect. No one knew better than he how to go about being a gentleman. He had had his lessons, not to say examples, from the first gentlemen of England. Having been brought up on dukes and earls,—and all that sort of thing,—to say nothing of quite a majority in the House of Lords, he was in a fair way of knowing "what's what," to use his own far from original expression.
You couldn't fool Cricklewick to save your life. The instant he looked upon you he could put you where you belonged, and, so far as he was concerned, that was where you would have to stay.
It is doubtful if there was ever a more discerning, more discriminating butler in all England. It was his
