Page:A Study in Colour - Augusta Zelia Fraser.pdf/33



WING to the peculiar conditions of the hotel, it was not astonishing that the black servants of the establishment succeeded each other with almost bewildering celerity.

A fat quadroon man-cook, who owed his fixity of tenure more to his stolidity than his talents; a smart-looking mulatto boy, who attended to the bar, and answered generally to the name of Brown; and a mahogany-coloured female, of uncertain age and ragged aspect, who spent the greater portion of her life on her hands and knees floor-cleaning, might be looked upon as forming the permanent staff. As to the chambermaids, they came and went, leaving behind them a dim recollection of various faces—brown, black, and yellow—with which was indistinctly associated a memory of divers romantic