"
"But if they give satisfaction--"
"That doesn't prevent them from giving trouble. Now, you've mentioned
Sturridge--it was Sturridge I was particularly thinking of when I made
the observation about servants being a nuisance."
"The excellent Sturridge a nuisance! I can't believe it."
"I know he's excellent, and we just couldn't get along without him; he's
the one reliable element in this rather haphazard household. But his
very orderliness has had an effect on him. Have you ever considered what
it must be like to go on unceasingly doing the correct thing in the
correct manner in the same surroundings for the greater part of a
lifetime? To know and ordain and superintend exactly what silver and
glass and table linen shall be used and set out on what occasions, to
have cellar and pantry and plate-cupboard under a minutely devised and
undeviating administration, to be noiseless, impalpable, omnipresent,
and, as far as your own department is concerned, omniscient?"
"I should go mad," said Jane with conviction.
"Exactly," said Clovis thoughtfully, swallowing his completed Ella
Wheeler Wilcox.
"But Sturridge hasn't gone mad," said Jane with a flutter of inquiry in
her voice.
"On most points he's thoroughly sane and reliable," said Clovis, "but at
times he is subject to the most obstinate delusions, and on those
occasions he becomes not merely a nuisance but a decided embarrassment."
"What sort of delusions?"
"Unfortunately they usually centre round one of the guests of the house
party, and that is where the awkwardness comes in.
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