 | Mark Twain's sketches |  |
13. CONCERNING CHAMBERMAIDS.
Against all chambermaids, of whatsoever
age or nationality, I launch the curse of
bachelordom! Because:
They always put the pillows at the opposite
end of the bed from the gas-burner,
so that while you read and smoke before
sleeping (as is the ancient and honored
custom of bachelors), you have to hold
your book aloft, in an uncomfortable position,
to keep the light from dazzling your
eyes.
When they find the pillows removed to
the other end of the bed in the morning,
they receive not the suggestion in a friendly
spirit; but glorying in their absolute sovereignty,
and unpitying your helplessness,
they make the bed just as it was originally,
and gloat in secret over the pang their
tyranny will cause you.
Always after that, when they find you
have transposed the pillows, they undo
your work, and thus defy and seek to
embitter the life that God has given you.
If they cannot get the light in an inconvenient
position any other way, they move
the bed.
If you pull your trunk out six inches
from the wall, so that the lid will stay up
when you open it, they always shove that
trunk back again. They do it on purpose.
If you want the cuspidor in a certain
spot, where it will be handy, they don't,
and so they move it.
They always put your other boots into
inaccessible places. They chiefly enjoy
depositing them as far under the bed as
the wall will permit. It is because this
compels you to get down in an undignified
in the dark with the boot-jack, and swear.
They always put the match-box in some
other place. They hunt up a new place
for it every day, and put up a bottle, or
other perishable glass thing, where the box
stood before. This is to cause you to
break that glass thing, groping in the dark,
and get yourself into trouble.
They are for ever and ever moving the
furniture. When you come in, in the night,
you can calculate on finding the bureau
where the wardrobe was in the morning.
And when you go out in the morning, if
you leave the slop-jar by the door and the
rocking-chair by the window, when you
come in at midnight, or thereabouts, you
will fall over that rocking-chair, and you
will proceed toward the window and sit
down in that slop-tub. This will disgust
you. They like that.
No matter where you put anything, they
are not going to let it stay there. They
will take it and move it the first chance
they get. It is their nature. And, besides,
it gives them pleasure to be mean and
contrary this way. They would die if they
couldn't be villains.
They always save up all the old scraps
of printed rubbish you throw on the floor,
and stack them up carefully on the table,
and start the fire with your valuable manu
scripts. If there is any one particular old
scrap that you are more down on than any
other, and which you are gradually wearing
your life out trying to get rid of, you may
take all the pains you possibly can in that
direction, but it won't be of any use,
because they will always fetch that old
scrap back and put it in the same old place
again every time. It does them good.
If you leave the key in the door for
convenience sake, they will carry it down
to the office and give it to the clerk. They
do this under the pretence of trying to
protect your property from thieves; but
actually they do it because they want to
make you tramp back down-stairs after it
when you come home tired, or put you to the
trouble of sending a waiter for it, which
waiter will expect you to pay him something.
In which case I suppose the profligate
creatures divide.
They keep always trying to make your
bed before you get up, thus destroying
your rest and inflicting agony upon you;
but after you get up, they don't come any
more till next day.
They try all the different kinds of cussedness
they can think of; and the more
kinds they can think of, the more their life
is a joy to them.
Chambermaids are dead to every human
instinct. They ought to be abolished.
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