Clever Butler Briefly Announces Guests

1900

There is no personage quite so imposing as a well-developed specimen of the British butler. The Wellesley Magazine relates an anecdote of one butler whose taste for the impressive was too much for the family whose service he had entered.

He was a newcomer, and almost his first duty was to announce the arrivals at his employer's first "at home" of the season. The earliest guests to appear were Mr. and Mrs. Penny and their daughter, old and familiar friends of the family. The new butler announced them in measured tones and with majestic mien:

"Mr. Edwin Algernon Pembroke Penny, Mrs. Edwin Algernon Pembroke Penny, and Miss Maud Victoria Penny."

Other arrivals were announced at equal length and with equal solemnity. Before the next "at home," the master of the house suggested that so much repetition and elaboration was unnecessary; that he would prefer to have his guests announced more briefly. The magnificent being bowed grave assent and said nothing. But his feelings had been wounded; and he was, unlike most of his kind, as clever as he was majestic.

As before, the first to arrive were Mr. and Mrs. Penny and Miss Penny. When they had ascended the stairs, they paused an instant at the drawing-room door; the next, the butler flung it abruptly open, and they heard themselves briskly announced to their dismayed hosts in the comprehensive formula:

"Threepence!"

—Youth's Companion