I understand that it was a
complete success."
Mrs. Brackett was very much impressed by this story.
"If I don't find anyone to-day I shall try it," she said as we parted.
She did not find anyone, and, she did try it. She left home the following
day, as I learnt from Brackett when I met him a week later.
"Your tip's come off absolutely A 1," he said, "and I'm most awfully
obliged. The worry was getting on my wife's nerves. As it is I filled up my
establishment a couple of days ago and, as everything is going well, I've
wired my wife to come home to-morrow."
"Have you broken it to the maids?" I asked doubtfully.
"Oh, no; but I shall just tell 'em in the morning," said Brackett. "That'll
be all right."
I felt at the time that he was being far too precipitate, but he seemed so
confident that I didn't interfere. The sequel was disastrous.
In the first place Brackett, in his casual way, omitted to say anything
about his being married until Mrs. Brackett was actually in the house. Even
then he seems to have been rather ambiguous in his explanations. Anyway the
new maids were, or affected to be, profoundly shocked. They intimated that
they would never have entered so irregular an establishment had they known,
and departed _en masse_ after spreading a scandal among the tradespeople
which will take the Bracketts twenty years to live down.
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