I HAD had a very busy afternoon and had still two appointments to keep. The first of these was in the suburbs, a consultation with a doctor who was a stranger to me. It was a familiar type of house where we met—classic Doric pillars to the portico, a congested hall with hat-pegs made of cow horns, a pea-green vase with a fern in it perched on a bamboo tripod, and a red and perspiring maid-servant. Further, I became acquainted with a dining-room containing bomb-proof, mahogany furniture, and great prints in pairs on the walls, “War” and “Peace” on one side, “Summer” and “Winter” on the other. Then there was the best bedroom, rich in lace and wool mats, containing a bedstead as glaring in brass as a fire-engine, a mirror draped with muslin and pink bows, and enough silver articles on the dressing-table to start a shop. After a discussion of the case with the doctor in a drawing-room which smelt like an empty church, I rushed off,216 leaving the doctor to detail the treatment we had advised, for I found—to my dismay—that I was twenty minutes late. The second case was that of an exacting duke whom I had to visit at regular periods and, according to the ducal pleasure, I should be at the door at least one minute before the appointed hour struck. I was now hopelessly late and consequently flurried. On reaching the ducal abode I flew upstairs prepared to meet the storm. His Grace ignored my apologies and suggested, with uncouth irony, that I had been at a cricket match. He added that it was evident that I took no interest in him, that his sufferings were nothing to me, and concluded by asserting that if he had been dying I should not have hurried. I always regard remarks of this type as a symptom of disease rather than as a considered criticism of conduct, and therefore had little difficulty in bringing the duke to a less contentious frame of mind by reverting to that topic of the day—his engrossing disorder.
The duke never allowed his comfort to be in any way disturbed. He considered his disease as a personal affront to himself, and I therefore discussed it from the point of view of an unprovoked and indecent outrage. This he found217 very pleasing, although I failed to answer his repeated inquiry as to why His Grace the Duke of X should be afflicted in this rude and offensive manner. It was evident that his position should have exempted him from what was quite a vulgar disorder, and it was incomprehensible that he, of all people, should have been selected for this insult.
The interview over, I made my report to the duchess, who was in a little room adjacent to the hall. She followed me out to ask a final question just as I was on the point of taking my hat. The hat handed to me by the butler was, however, a new hat I had never seen before. It was of a shape I disliked. The butler, with due submission, said it was the hat I came in. I replied it was impossible, and, putting it on my head, showed that it was so small as to be absurd. The duchess, who was a lady of prompt convictions, exclaimed, “Ridiculous; that was never your hat!” The butler could say no more: he was convicted of error. The duchess then seized upon the only other hat on the table and held it at arm’s length. “Whose is this?” she cried. “Heavens, it is the shabbiest hat I ever saw! It cannot be yours.” (It was not.) Looking inside, she added, “What a filthy hat!218 It is enough to poison the house.” Handing it to the butler as if it had been an infected rag, she exclaimed, “Take it away and burn it!”
The butler did not at once convey this garbage to the flames, but remarked—as if talking in his sleep—“There is a pianoforte tuner in the drawing-room.” The duchess stared with amazement at this inconsequent remark. Whereupon the butler added that the new hat I had rejected might possibly be his. He was at once sent up to confront the artist, whose aimless tinkling could be heard in the hall, with the further message that if the dirty hat should happen to be his he was never to enter the house again. The butler returned to say that the musician did not “use” a hat. He wore a cap, which same he had produced from his pocket.
While the butler was away a great light had illumined the mind of the duchess. It appeared that Lord Andrew, her son-in-law, had called that afternoon with his wife. He had just left, his wife remaining behind. It was soon evident that the duchess had a grievance against her son-in-law. When the light fell upon her she exclaimed to me, “I see it all now. This horrible hat is Andrew’s. He has taken yours by mistake and ha............