Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/113

Rh If you are a young sightly fellow, whenever you whisper your mistress at the table, run your nose full in her cheek; or if your breath be good, breathe full in her face; this I have known to have had very good consequences in some families.

Never come till you have been called three or four times; for none but dogs will come at the first whistle: and when the master calls "Who's there?" no servant is bound to come; for Who's there is nobody's name.

When you have broken all your earthen drinking vessels below stairs (which is usually done in a week) the copper pot will do as well; it can boil milk, heat porridge, hold small beer, or in case of necessity, serve for a jordan, therefore apply it indifferently to all these uses; but never wash or scour it, for fear of taking off the tin.

Although you are allowed knives for the servants hall at meals, yet you ought to spare them, and make use only of your master's.

Let it be a constant rule, that no chair, stool, or table in the servants hall, or the kitchen, shall have above three legs, which has been the ancient and constant practice in all the families I ever knew, and is said to be founded upon two reasons; first to show that servants are ever in a tottering condition; secondly, it was thought a point of humility, that the servants chairs and tables should have at least one leg fewer than those of their masters. I grant there has been an exception to this rule with regard to the cook, who, by old custom, was allowed an easy chair to sleep in after dinner; and yet I have seldom seen them with above three legs. Now this epidemical lameness of servants' chairs, is by philosophers puted