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Boots!

James Slade remembered that the business of the day began with boots. The working part of the hotel was now awake, pulling up blinds and drawing curtains, sweeping and dusting, lighting the kitchen fire, preparing to carry up shaving water, laying the breakfast-table, thinking of fried sausages, bacon and eggs. Mr. Slade hurried upstairs in slippers and baize apron to collect the hotel boots. It would not do for him to be late with boots on this, his first morning. And, obviously, you began with the first floor, and particularly with Mr. Truslove who was an early riser and liked five minutes stroll before breakfast.

Mr. Slade’s new self-education commenced with the collecting of boots, and on that first morning he made a most horrid mess of it. So eager was he to be punctual in the polishing of shoe-leather that he gathered boots haphazard into his green apron, and bundled them downstairs, quite forgetting to identify each pair by marking them with chalk. Brushes and blacking were ready to hand on a shelf in the pantry cupboard, and Mr. Slade paraded his boots and got busy. Which were the Truslove boots? God Almighty, but he had muddled up the hotel footgear! Here was a pretty problem!

Oh—agony and bloody sweat! In his dismay he went in search of Florrie, and found her busy in the dining-room.

“Florrie, my dear, I’ve muddled up the boots. What—am—I to do?”

“Lawks, you don’t say so!”

“I do say so. Can you—identify—the——?”

“I’ll have a try, Dad. I should know most of ’em,” so Florrie hurried down below with him, and set herself to sort out the footgear.

“Them’s Mr. Truslove’s. Buttons. He’s fussy about boots and likes ’em smart. Yes, that’s Popham’s, them with the new laces. Those bobbly ones are Sawkins’s; he ’as corns. Them’s Miss Goodbody’s, the prim ones with pointed toes——”

So, the selection was carried through, and Mr. Slade, finding a stubby pencil and an odd bit of paper, scribbled down the various names, and dropped an improvised label into each boot. God be thanked Florrie had saved the situation for him, and was repaying him for blindness as to brothers. He set to work on Mr. Truslove’s boots, and having polished them with extreme care until the toecaps shone like polished gilt, and remembering that Mr. Truslove was an early riser, he decided to carry Mr. Truslove’s boots upstairs and deposit them outside his door.

He was in the act of placing them on the mat when Mr. Truslove’s door opened, and Mr. Truslove, in dressing-gown and nightshirt, and with a rather tousled head, surprised James Slade.

“Your boots, sir.”

“Ha—boots,” said Mr. Truslove.

“Shall I carry them in, sir?”

“No, give ’em to me.”

Mr. Truslove was looking curiously at the new manservant. Then he glanced at the boots, holding them up to the light.

“I hope they are satisfactory, sir?”

“Quite. Let’s see, what’s your name?”

“Slade, sir.”

“You might run down and get my shaving water, Slade.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“I feel like getting out early.”

Mr. Slade went down for the shaving water, and Mr. Truslove, having put the boots on the floor, looked at himself in the mirror, and caressed a stubbly chin. Now, what was there funny about the fellow? His voice, his language, the cut of his jib? Decent, respectable sort of old chap, but somehow more than that. Might be a fellow who had come down in the world; might be younger than he looked. Mr. Truslove was in the act of getting into his trousers when the knock came at the door.

“Your water, sir.”

“Bring it in, Slade. That’s right, stand it in the basin. Been in service before, I take it?”

“Yes, sir. Anything else I can do for you, sir?”

“Not at the moment. Thank you, Slade. I’m rather glad there’s a man about the place. Can you press trousers?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I’ll look ’em out later, and lay ’em on a chair.”

Mr. Slade hurried away to complete his business of the boots, and Mr. Truslove, lathering his chin, supposed that Slade had been in good service, and was accustomed to waiting upon gentlemen, and so had picked up the graces of a gentleman’s gentleman. Yes, perhaps that explained it. Mrs. Pomeroy was not the sort of woman to buy a pig in a poke.

The last pair of boots had been dealt with when Mr. Slade heard Florrie calling him. It was half-past seven, and the staff breakfast was ready in the kitchen. Mr. Slade removed his apron and put on his jacket, and in doing so he was wiser than he knew, for Mrs. Eliza ruled in the kitchen, and liked things just so. Mr. Slade bade Mrs. Eliza good morning, addressing her as Mrs. Cotgrove, and Eliza returned the compliment by addressing him as Mr. Slade.

“There’s your chair, Mr. Slade. You can take the other end of the table.”

Mr. Slade, feeling himself in a friendly atmosphere, took what was to be his appointed place, though, before many weeks had passed, his end was to become the head of the table, Mrs. Eliza relinquishing her supreme authority to a man who was to become known as Dad. Mrs. Cotgrove poured out tea, and the bacon or the sausages were served according to seniority. Yet, on this morning, Mr. Slade found the dish passed to him first.

“After you, ma’am,” said he to Mrs. Cotgrove.

“You help yourself, Mr. Slade,” said she.

Mr. Slade helped himself, but not greedily so, and remarked that it was a lovely morning. Mrs. Cotgrove accepted this piece of information as news, she not having put her head outside her kitchen. Eliza sugared the other cups, but as a special favour the sugar-bowl was sent to Mr. Slade. He took one lump, and his restraint did not pass unnoticed. Sugar was precious, for Mrs. P. handed it out daily from the store-cupboard, just as though she was doling out pieces of gold. Meanwhile, Mr. Slade was thinking that the elderly woman with the fierce black eyebrows must be less formidable than she seemed, if a child ran downstairs to get into bed with her, sweets or no sweets.

Mr. Slade, feeling it his duty to make conversation, asked whether it would be possible for him to be supplied with a hot iron some time during the day. Mr. Truslove’s trousers needed pressing.

“You come to me for it,” said Mrs. Eliza.

“Thank you, ma’am. I don’t want to interfere in any way.”

“No trouble, I’m sure.”

Mr. Slade smiled and looked shyly up and down the table.

“May I say that I feel among friends. If it hadn’t been for Miss Florence——”

Florrie winked at him.

“Did you get ’em all right?”

“I sincerely hope so.”

“What’s them?” asked Mrs. Cotgrove.

“Boots, ma’am. I got muddled up with the boots.”

May giggled and was looked at severely by Eliza.

“Nothing to snigger at, young woman. I’m sure it was most natural-like for Mr. Slade to—be—a bit puzzled——”

“I wasn’t sniggerin’,” said May.

“Oh, yes, you were.”

“I mean—not at Mr. Slade. I wouldn’t like to clean old Sawkins’s boots. He don’t change ’is socks more than——”

“Don’t be vulgar, my girl,” said Mrs. Cotgrove.