"But why did the servants go away in a body?" asked the Baroness,
descending from her social perch by the inviting ladder of curiosity.
"They never were paid. None of us ever got our wages. For some time
the family has paid nobody. The day before yesterday, the telephone
company sent a man to take away the instrument. Then the electric
light was cut off. When that happens, it is all over."
The man had heard of the phenomenon from a colleague.
"And there is nobody? They have nobody at all?"
The Baroness had always been rich, and was really trying to guess what
would happen to people who had no servants.
"There is my wife," said the porter. "But she is old," he added
apologetically, "and the palace is big. Can she sweep out three
hundred rooms, cook for two families of masters and dress the
Princess's hair? She cannot do it."
This was stated with gloomy gravity. The Baroness also shook her head
in sympathy.
"There were sixteen servants in the house yesterday," continued the
porter. "I remember when there were thirty, in the times of the old
Prince."
"There would be still, if the family had been wise," said the Baroness
severely. "Is your wife upstairs?"
"Who knows where she is?" enquired the porter by way of answer, and
with the air of a man who fears that he may never see his wife again.
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