Hicks set his fists on his hips and recited in a voice vibrating with feeling:
"Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like water will-nilly flowing,
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither willy-nilly blowing."
It did not seem a propitious moment to "put Mr. Hicks in his place," as Mrs. Stott had phrased it, but Wallie had no desire to nerve himself twice for the same ordeal; therefore, with something of the desperate courage which comes to high-strung persons about to have a tooth extracted, Wallie advanced and inquired cordially:
"Well, Mr. Hicks, how are things coming?"
"I am not complaining," replied Mr. Hicks, in a tone which intimated that once he started enumerating his grievances he would not know where to finish.
"Pleasant people, aren't they?" Wallie suggested.
"So is a menagerie-after it's eaten."
"They do have appetites," Wallie admitted. "I suppose it's living in the open."
"I've cooked for section hands on the Burlington, and they were canary-birds beside these Poland Chinas. We had ought to brought troughs instead of tinware."
"You mustn't speak so of our guests," Wallie reprimanded.
Hicks went on wrathfully:
"That fat sister in the cameo breastpin-she swiped a can of potted chicken on me yesterday-she's a regular 'camp-robber'."
Wallie interposed hastily:
"We mustn't have any trouble. I want to get through this trip peaceably. In fact, Mr. Hicks, it's along this line that I wished to have a word with you."
Mr. Hicks looked at him quickly and suspiciously.
"Has any of 'em been kickin' on me?"
Wallie hesitated, casting a furtive eye about as he did so for the most convenient exit.
"Not kicking, I wouldn't saykicking , Mr. Hicks, but it has been suggested-I have been thinking that it might bepleasanter for you and Red to have your own table."
Mr. Hicks stopped turning over the potatoes and looked at him for what seemed to Wallie a full minute.
"In other words," he said, finally, in a voice that was oily and coaxing, as if he wanted the truth from him, "the dudes don't want the cook and the horse-wrangler to eat with them?"
Wallie noticed uneasily that while Hicks spoke he was tentatively feeling the edge of the knife he had been using. Instinctively Wallie's eyes sought the route he had selected, as he replied conciliatingly:
"No reflection upon you and Red is intended, Mr. Hicks; it is just that Eastern people have different customs, and we have to humour them, although we may not agree with them."
There was another silence, in which Hicks continued to thumb the knife in a manner that kept Wallie at a tension, then he said with a suavity which somehow was more menacing than an outburst:
"Perhaps itwould be better for us rough-necks to eat at the second table. It hadn't occurred to me that our society might not be agreeable to ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad you mentioned it."
Hicks seemed to purr, actually. His tone was caressing-like the velvet touch of a tiger-and his humble acceptance of the situation was so unnatural that Wallie felt himself shiver with apprehension. Was he capable of putting ground-glass in the sugar, he wondered, or dropping a spider in something?
"Red" was plainly disgruntled when he found himself, as it were, segregated, and he sulked openly; but Hicks, on the contrary, was so urbane and respectful that everyone remarked his changed manner, and Mrs. Stott triumphantly demanded to know if it were not proof of her contention that servants were the better for being occasionally reminded of their position.
"I am not a snob," she reiterated, "but common people really spoil my appetite when I am obliged to eat with them."
Wallie, however, could not share her elation, for there was that in Mr. Hicks' eye whenever he met it which renewed his uneasy forebodings as to ground glass and spiders.
* * *
"Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like water will-nilly flowing,
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither willy-nilly blowing."
It did not seem a propitious moment to "put Mr. Hicks in his place," as Mrs. Stott had phrased it, but Wallie had no desire to nerve himself twice for the same ordeal; therefore, with something of the desperate courage which comes to high-strung persons about to have a tooth extracted, Wallie advanced and inquired cordially:
"Well, Mr. Hicks, how are things coming?"
"I am not complaining," replied Mr. Hicks, in a tone which intimated that once he started enumerating his grievances he would not know where to finish.
"Pleasant people, aren't they?" Wallie suggested.
"So is a menagerie-after it's eaten."
"They do have appetites," Wallie admitted. "I suppose it's living in the open."
"I've cooked for section hands on the Burlington, and they were canary-birds beside these Poland Chinas. We had ought to brought troughs instead of tinware."
"You mustn't speak so of our guests," Wallie reprimanded.
Hicks went on wrathfully:
"That fat sister in the cameo breastpin-she swiped a can of potted chicken on me yesterday-she's a regular 'camp-robber'."
Wallie interposed hastily:
"We mustn't have any trouble. I want to get through this trip peaceably. In fact, Mr. Hicks, it's along this line that I wished to have a word with you."
Mr. Hicks looked at him quickly and suspiciously.
"Has any of 'em been kickin' on me?"
Wallie hesitated, casting a furtive eye about as he did so for the most convenient exit.
"Not kicking, I wouldn't saykicking , Mr. Hicks, but it has been suggested-I have been thinking that it might bepleasanter for you and Red to have your own table."
Mr. Hicks stopped turning over the potatoes and looked at him for what seemed to Wallie a full minute.
"In other words," he said, finally, in a voice that was oily and coaxing, as if he wanted the truth from him, "the dudes don't want the cook and the horse-wrangler to eat with them?"
Wallie noticed uneasily that while Hicks spoke he was tentatively feeling the edge of the knife he had been using. Instinctively Wallie's eyes sought the route he had selected, as he replied conciliatingly:
"No reflection upon you and Red is intended, Mr. Hicks; it is just that Eastern people have different customs, and we have to humour them, although we may not agree with them."
There was another silence, in which Hicks continued to thumb the knife in a manner that kept Wallie at a tension, then he said with a suavity which somehow was more menacing than an outburst:
"Perhaps itwould be better for us rough-necks to eat at the second table. It hadn't occurred to me that our society might not be agreeable to ladies and gentlemen. I'm glad you mentioned it."
Hicks seemed to purr, actually. His tone was caressing-like the velvet touch of a tiger-and his humble acceptance of the situation was so unnatural that Wallie felt himself shiver with apprehension. Was he capable of putting ground-glass in the sugar, he wondered, or dropping a spider in something?
"Red" was plainly disgruntled when he found himself, as it were, segregated, and he sulked openly; but Hicks, on the contrary, was so urbane and respectful that everyone remarked his changed manner, and Mrs. Stott triumphantly demanded to know if it were not proof of her contention that servants were the better for being occasionally reminded of their position.
"I am not a snob," she reiterated, "but common people really spoil my appetite when I am obliged to eat with them."
Wallie, however, could not share her elation, for there was that in Mr. Hicks' eye whenever he met it which renewed his uneasy forebodings as to ground glass and spiders.
* * *
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