Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/39

Rh second floor, and some ladies and one or two men sitting about, and a small room, back of it, crowded with girls from eighteen to sixty-eight years old. There were also girls upon the stairs, and girls in the hall below, besides some girls standing on the side-walk before the door.

When I made known my business and paid my fee, one of the several proprietors who were wandering about the front room went into the back apartment and soon returned with a tall Irishwoman with a bony, weather-beaten face and a large, weather-beaten shawl. This woman was told to take a chair by my side. Down sat the huge creature and stared at me. I did not feel very easy under her scrutinizing gaze, but I bore it as best I could, and immediately began to ask her all the appropriate questions that I could think of. Some she answered satisfactorily, and some she didn't answer at all; but as soon as I made a pause, she began to put questions herself.

"How many servants do you kape?" she asked.

I answered that we intended to get along with one, and if she understood her business she would find her work very easy and the place a good one.

She turned sharp upon me and said:

"Have ye stationary washtubs?"

I hesitated. I knew our washtubs were not stationary, for I helped to carry them about. But they might be screwed fast, and made stationary if that was an important object. But before making this answer, I thought of the great conveniences for washing presented by our residence, surrounded as it was, at high tide, by water.

"Why, we live in a stationary washtub," I said smiling.