Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/131

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

BUTLERS

without telling that Madeira or Sherry should follow the soup, and further, that it will drink the softer if it has been uncorked some hours before. Haply he is cursed with an economical master, who will insist that wine left over to-night shall be drunk to-morrow. Now the butler will either drink it himself, as he should, or pour it down the sink, as it deserves; for “wine kept open all night is not worth a mite.” Towards him a noble liberality should be extended: the more freedom you give him, the more zealously will he guard your interests against the plundering capacity of his underlings.

’Tis not so long ago that a feeble remonstrance was raised against one of the grandest butlers that ever died in a public-house: that there were never any cigars in the

117