A TREASURE

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1582, 25 March 1887, Page 3

A TREASURE

Mrs Murcet writes thus in Lady Holland's Life of Sydnev Smith : 1 was coining downstair* [one] morning when Mr Smith suddenly said to Bu ich [the name of one of his servants], who was passing, " Bunch, do you like roast duck or boiled chicken 1" Bunch had probably never tasted either the one or the other in her life, but answered, without a moment's hesitation, „ Roast duck, please, sir,'' and disappeared. I laughed. " You may laugh," said he, " but you have no idea of the labour it has cost me to give her that decision of character. The Yorkshire peasantry are the quickest and shrewd* est in the world, but you can never get a direct answer from them ; if you ask thorn even their own names they always scratch their heads andsay, 'A's sur ai don't knaw, sir, but I have brought Bunch to such perfection that she never hesitates now on any subject, howewr difficult. lam very strict with ber Would you like to hear her repeat her crimes J She has them by lieirt, and repeats them every day." "Come here, Bunch!" calling out to her' " come and repeat yonr crimes to Mrs M ireet;" and Bunch, a clean, fair, squat, tidy little girl about ten or twelve years of age, quite as a matter of course, as grave as a judge, without the loast hesitation, and with a loud voice, began to repeat— "Plate-snatching, gravyspilling, door-slamming, blue-bottla fly-catching, and curtsey-bobbing." '"Explain to Mrs Marcet what blue-bottle fly-catching is." "Standing with my mouth open and not attending, sir." " And what is curtsey-bobbing!" "Curtseying 1l the centre of the earth, please sir." "Good girl! now you may go. She makes a capital wait -r, I assure you; on rtate occasions Jack Robinson, my carpenter, takes off his apron and waits too, and does pretty well, but he sometimes naturally makes a mistake and sticks a gimlet into the bread instead of a fork."