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The thermometer says a hundred and fifty, the barometer says very dry, we've had twenty-five hours' sunshine, and there's not a drop of rain recorded in the soap-dish. Are we going to take this lying down?" "No," said Thomas, "let's sleep out to-night." "What do you say, Dahlia?" "It's a good idea. You can all sleep on the croquet lawn, and Myra and I will take the tennis lawn."
The lady who insists upon this will not be annoyed by having her dishes washed with dark, musty and greasy rags, as is too frequently the case. Under the sink should be kept a slop-pail; and, on a shelf by it, a soap-dish and two water-pails. A large boiler of warm soft water should always be kept over the fire, well covered, and a hearth-broom and bellows be hung near the fire.
I could make nothing of this. I had left Brinkley Court a stricken home, with hearts bleeding wherever you looked, and I had returned to find it a sort of earthly paradise. It baffled me. I bathed bewilderedly. The toy duck was still in the soap-dish, but I was too preoccupied to give it a thought. Still at a loss, I returned to my room, and there was Jeeves.
She lingered kindly in Nedda's, feeling that the girl could not yet feel quite at home, and looking in the soap-dish lest she might not have the right verbena, and about the dressing-table to see that she had pins and scent, and plenty of 'pot-pourri, and thinking: 'The child is pretty a nice girl, not like her mother. Explaining carefully how, because of the approaching week-end, she had been obliged to put her in 'a very simple room' where she would be compelled to cross the corridor to her bath, she asked her if she had a quilted dressing-gown, and finding that she had not, left her saying she would send one and could she do her frocks up, or should Sirrett come?
Two or three towels, and three dish-cloths should be used. Two large tin tubs, painted on the outside, should be provided; one for washing, and one for rinsing; also, a large old waiter, on which to drain the dishes. A soap-dish, with hard soap, and a fork, with which to use it, a slop-pail, and two pails for water, should also be furnished.
He chipped the edge of the basin as he handled the ewer, dropped the lid of the soap-dish with a clatter, and as he washed himself he burst out with an angry ejaculation, for the wet soap was gripped so tightly and viciously that it flew out of his hand as if in fear, and dived right under the bed to the farthest end, where it had to be hunted out and retrieved, covered with the flue that had been forgotten by one of the maids; while the way in which he finished off with his towel was harsh enough to produce a smarting sensation upon his skin.
Beneath his astonished eyes a towel fell upon the table a crumpled, soiled towel, bearing on its dingy hem the inscription in indelible ink: "Hotel du Commerce, Anvers." A tooth-mug of substantial earthenware dropped to the floor with a crash. A slimy soap-dish of the same manufacture slid across the table and into Brentwick's lap.
"Then shan't we have any supper at all?" asked Phyllis, dismayed, stepping back on to a soap-dish that cracked responsively. "Oh, yes," said Mother, "only it'll mean unpacking one of those big cases that we put in the cellar. Phil, do mind where you're walking to, there's a dear. Peter, hold the light." The cellar door opened out of the kitchen. There were five wooden steps leading down.
Heaven knows that I had no intention of touching the child's work then or later; but, that evening, a stroll through the garden brought me unawares full on it; so that I trampled, before I knew, marigold-heads, dust-bank, and fragments of broken soap-dish into confusion past all hope of mending. Next morning, I came upon Muhammad Din crying softly to himself over the ruin I had wrought.
The first candidates for the soap-dish were very unruly under the operation, but they only got their ears snipped and their skin chipped, and had to return to their prisons with their polls all bloody as well as bald. Those who looked on, took a lesson from the folly of their comrades, and most of them remained quiet.
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