A half-hour later the historic evening had come to an end. The last
guest had departed, and all of my staff, save Mrs. Judson and her male
child. These I begged to escort to their home, since the way was
rather far and dark. The child, incautiously left in the kitchen at
the mercy of the female black, had with criminal stupidity been
stuffed with food, traces of almost every course of the dinner being
apparent upon its puffy countenance. Being now in a stupor from
overfeeding, I was obliged to lug the thing over my shoulder. I
resolved to warn the mother at an early opportunity of the perils of
an unrestricted diet, although the deluded creature seemed actually to
glory in its corpulence. I discovered when halfway to her residence
that the thing was still tightly clutching the gnawed thigh-bone of a
fowl which was spotting the shoulder of my smartest top-coat. The
mother, however, was so ingenuously delighted with my success and so
full of prattle concerning my future triumphs that I forbore to
instruct her at this time. I may say that of all my staff she had
betrayed the most intelligent understanding of my ideals, and I bade
her good-night with a strong conviction that she would greatly assist
me in the future. She also promised that Mr.
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