"Has it struck you that, when confronted with moral
delinquency, I am apt to let my indignation get the better of me?"
"Not at all," I answered heartily, refilling my glass.
It appeared that another reply would have pleased him better.
"H'm. I was hoping that, perhaps, I had visited his offence too
strongly. As a clergyman, you see, I was bound to be severe; but upon
my word, sir, since he went I have felt like a man who has lost a
limb."
He drummed with his fingers on the cloth for a few moments, and went
on:
"One has a natural disposition to forgive butlers--Pharaoh, for
instance, felt it. There hovers around butlers that peculiar
atmosphere which Shakespeare noticed as encircling kings, an
atmosphere in which common ethics lose their pertinence. But mine was
a rare bird--a black swan among butlers. He was more than a butler: he
was a quick and brightly-gifted man. Of the accuracy of his taste,
and the unusual scope of his endeavor, you will be able to form some
opinion when I assure you he modelled himself upon _me_."
I bowed over my brandy.
"I am a scholar; yet I employed him to read aloud to me, and derived
pleasure from his intonation. I talk as a scholar; yet he learned
to answer me in language as precise as my own. My cast-off garments
fitted him not more irreproachably than did my amenities of manner.
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