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 can not 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 spittoon 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 attitude and make wild
sweeps for them 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 forever 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-bucket
by the door and 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 any thing, 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 manuscripts. 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.
And they use up more hair-oil than any six
men. If charged with purloining the same,
they lie about it. What do they care about a
hereafter? Absolutely nothing.
If you leave your 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 vile pretense 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 degraded 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 do all the mean things they can think
of, and they do them just out of pure cussedness,
and nothing else.
Chambermaids are dead to every human instinct.
I have cursed them in behalf of outraged
bachelordom. They deserve it. If I can get a
bill through the Legislature abolishing chambermaids,
I mean to do it.
