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01519.txt
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$Unique_ID{bob01519}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Sketches, Old And New
Concerning Chambermaids}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{always
get
put
bed
chambermaids
}
$Date{1893}
$Log{}
Title: Sketches, Old And New
Book: Concerning Chambermaids
Author: Twain, Mark
Date: 1893
Concerning Chambermaids
Against all chambermaids, of whatsoever age or nationality, I launch the
curse of bachelordom! Because:
They always put the pillows at the opposite end of the bed from the
gas-burner, so that while you read and smoke before sleeping (as is the
ancient and honored custom of bachelors), you have to hold your book aloft, in
an uncomfortable position, to keep the light from dazzling your eyes.
When they find the pillows removed to the other end of the bed in the
morning, they receive not the suggestion in a friendly spirit; but, glorying
in their absolute sovereignty, and unpitying your helplessness, they make the
bed just as it was originally, and gloat in secret over the pang their tyranny
will cause you.
Always after that, when they find you have transposed the pillows, they
undo your work, and thus defy and seek to embitter the life that God has given
you.
If they cannot get the light in an inconvenient position any other way,
they move the bed.
If you pull your trunk out six inches from the wall, so that the lid will
stay up when you open it, they always shove that trunk back again. They do it
on purpose.
If you want the spittoon in a certain spot, where it will be handy, they
don't, and so they move it.
They always put your other boots into inaccessible places. They chiefly
enjoy depositing them as far under the bed as the wall will permit. It is
because this compels you to get down in an undignified attitude and make wild
sweeps for them in the dark with the boot-jack, and swear.
They always put the match-box in some other place. They hunt up a new
place for it every day, and put up a bottle, or other perishable glass thing,
where the box stood before. This is to cause you to break that glass thing,
groping in the dark, and get yourself into trouble.
They are for ever and ever moving the furniture. When you come in, in
the night, you can calculate on finding the bureau where the wardrobe was in
the morning. And when you go out in the morning, if you leave the slop-
bucket by the door and rocking-chair by the window, when you come in at
midnight, or thereabouts, you will fall over that rocking-chair, and you will
proceed toward the window and sit down in that slop-tub. This will disgust
you. They like that.
No matter where you put anything, they are not going to let it stay
there. They will take it and move it the first chance they get. It is their
nature. And, besides, it gives them pleasure to be mean and contrary this
way. They would die if they couldn't be villians.
They always save up all the old scraps of printed rubbish you throw on
the floor, and stack them up carefully on the table, and start the fire with
your valuable manuscripts. If there is any one particular old scrap that you
are more down on than any other, and which you are gradually wearing your life
out trying to get rid of, you may take all the pains you possibly can in that
direction, but it won't be of any use, because they will always fetch that old
scrap back and put it in the same old place again every time. It does them
good.
And they use up more hair-oil than any six men. If charged with
purloining the same, they lie about it. What do they care about a hereafter?
Absolutely nothing.
If you leave the key in the door for convenience sake, they will carry it
down to the office and give it to the clerk. They do this under the vile
pretence of trying to protect your property from thieves; but actually they do
it because they want to make you tramp back down-stairs after it when you come
home tired, or put you to the trouble of sending a waiter for it, which waiter
will expect you to pay him something. In which case I suppose the degraded
creatures divide.
They keep always trying to make your bed before you get up, thus
destroying your rest and inflicting agony upon you; but after you get up, they
don't come any more till next day.
They do all the mean things they can think of, and they do them just out
of pure cussedness, and nothing else.
Chambermaids are dead to every human instinct.
If I can get a bill through the Legislature abolishing chambermaids, I
mean to do it.