gentleman's servant

One day in December, Mr. Gabriel suddenly said to me: "In a few days, I will entertain a distinguished guest. He is an aristocrat and wants to do cotton trading. The owners of nearby cotton textile factories all want to cooperate with him. I He was invited, and he promised to come over as a guest and take a look at our factory."

Mr. Gabriel's expression was quite serious: "Do you understand? This is not an ordinary invitation. It doesn't matter how much it costs if you have to entertain him with a banquet of the highest standard."

Such a solemn order made me nervous.

"Sir, I don't understand what you mean, do you have any special request?" I asked him.

Mr. Gabriel frowned, and paced the room: "You know that those nobles have their eyes high above the top, especially those with titles, they call us cotton pluckers, no matter how rich we are, we never Seeing us as human beings... This is a huge opportunity, I never thought he would accept my invitation, so take it."

Mr. Gabriel is a man who does what he says and does. From that day on, he has been involved in the preparations for the banquet every day.It seemed that he really attached great importance to this guest, and even recited some literary passages from the book whenever he had time, and found various newspapers to attack him, for fear that he would have nothing to say to this noble gentleman.

I found Annie while I was out on errands, and she looked very ill, her face was getting more and more haggard.

"What did Andre say?" I asked her.

Annie shook her head: "He didn't say anything, he drank when he got home, then fell asleep, and went to Apple Lane when he woke up."

I was relatively speechless with her. After a while, Annie cried silently: "What should I do? How could he treat me like this?"

There is no such thing as divorce among poor couples. It is only popular among wealthy people in the upper class. If a woman does not want to live with a man, the best way is to run away, far away, forever Don't let this man find you.

"Have you ever considered leaving him?" I asked.

Annie said with tears in her eyes: "I will not leave him, I love him."

"So he loves you?"

Annie looked at me, didn't answer for a long time, but finally showed a smile: "Of course he loves me, I know."

I sighed and said, "I thought maybe I could help you. I'm going to start a little business."

"What are you going to do?" she asked me.

"Let's take a walk and talk while walking." I suggested.

Wangdu is very desolate in late autumn, the leaves on the trees are all gone, and the bare branches are shrouded in mist.The streets here are all dirt paths, and on both sides of the path are gentle slopes covered with moss, green and yellow, very ugly.Annie and I walked slowly, and I told her my plan.

"I want to do the business of scrap lace." I pondered for a moment and said, "In fact, I've thought about it for a long time and done a lot of research. Many fabric merchants often come to Mr. Gabriel's factory, and I got the money from them. There are a lot of words, defective products are not easy to sell in the store, and the decent lady cares about these details, so there is a lot of backlog."

"Five-meter-long lace is counted as a box. If it is placed in a store, it is basically [-] shillings per box. But there is a backlog of defective lace in the factory. If we sell it door-to-door, we may be able to set the price lower. One point. We take samples directly from Mr. Gabriel's factory and let customers choose at will. Maybe it is not as complete as the ones in the store, but our prices are more reasonable, and we are door-to-door sales." I said my thoughts .

"But can we buy fabrics from Mr. Gabriel's factory?" Anne asked suspiciously: "We have no capital at all, and Mr. Gabriel's customers are all regular merchants, and we are just his workers and servants." .”

"You don't have to worry about that," I said, "I've got Martin to supply the goods for us, but we're going to give him a share of the profits. As for capital, we don't need capital at all. You see, we're not trying to open a store. We just sell, sell the goods first and then make up the money.”

"But will they buy it?" Anne asked uncertainly.

"What we sell is low-grade lace, which is specially sold to those maids who cannot go out. They don't have money to buy expensive fabrics, but they can buy cheap lace decoration clothes." I said: "Our profit is very small, but it should be There is a profit. Besides, we are just trying, even if it does not make a profit, we will not lose money."

"Do you need anything from me?" Annie asked.

"Yes, I need you to resign from the factory, and I will arrange you to work as a maid in Mr. Gabriel's house." I nodded and said, "We both worked as servants in the viscount's house, you and I know it, no Anyone can knock on the doors of those rich people, we have to rely a little bit."

"What do you mean?" Annie looked at me in confusion.

"We're going to dress ourselves decently, and pretend we're big store employees, I'm a manservant, you're a maid. I've got a decent manservant's suit, and I should be able to bluff people. Most of all, we're going to pretend we're Very professional, you and I know the virtues of servants of rich people, just like their masters, they have no money, but they have high vision and like to pick and choose, so we have to pretend to be very reliable."

"But isn't this a lie?" Annie said hesitantly.

"We sell stuff, they buy stuff, fair trade, how can we be cheating?" I said, "If you don't think it's good, after we make enough money, we won't do it anymore."

Annie is a devout believer, who thinks that lying will go to hell, so she seems very hesitant.But she nodded after all, because she has no choice now, she has to make money to repay the bank loan.

Annie and I had been preparing and even rehearsing the conversation for our business, and Annie confessed to God every day because she felt she was lying.

I think this is the essential difference between me and Anne, for me, lies can come at will.

So we arranged the first door-to-door sales. As Mr. Gabriel's butler, I had more free time. I said that I would take Anne out to the market and look at the ingredients used for entertaining guests.In fact, she and I went to the factory to get several kinds of low-grade lace, and then went to the residential area of ​​the rich.

We dressed up in the best looks I could ever see, and I even took a shower and put on perfume and powder.Then I wore my most valuable possession, the gold brooch my lordship had given me.In the mirror, I look like a respectable tailor in a tailor's shop.

We knocked at the door of a lord's house, and the doorman watched us curiously.

"Hello, sir." I saluted him in the most standard manner: "We are employees of Louis Tailor, our owner wants to expand business, let employees come to sell, we have the latest lace here, high quality and low price , I wonder if the maid in your mansion is interested in taking a look?"

"Oh." The male servant was a little surprised: "You want to sell it to the maid, don't you want to sell it to the ladies and ladies?"

"To tell you the truth, these are all low-grade lace, which is a popular product in our store." I took out the lace and showed it to the male servant: "You can ask first, if the maid in your house is interested, we can Let them choose. If you are inconvenient, we will leave now and interrupt your precious time."

"Uh..." The valet hesitated, but nodded and said, "Well, you can come in. I think our girls here will be interested, they can't leave this house all year round. By the way, you Is it just lace? Is there any cheap satin or muslin? I need to buy some, the stores are too expensive."

Anne and I's decent attire gave us a lot of points. Under normal circumstances, servants would not let people into the house so easily.And we didn't act urgent, our bumbling attitude made us look very believable.

Sure enough, our items have been warmly welcomed. It seems that everyone likes cheap items. Although these items are defective, they are actually lace, a luxury exclusive to the rich.For maids who serve rich people all day long, even if they can't wear them openly, they can secretly make a good skirt or two in the bedroom, and they can also wear it out when they have the opportunity to satisfy their vanity.

One of the maids even exclaimed in surprise: "Oh my God, it's so beautiful, this pattern is exactly the same as the lady's.

Our things were sold out, and those who didn't buy them regretted it and asked us if we had any more. If so, they must come again.

When she left, Anne was incoherent with joy: "My God, I didn't expect it to be so easy. After deducting the capital and the money for Martin, we made a total of three shillings, which is almost as much as my monthly salary."

"If things go on like this in the future, we'll earn fifty pounds soon enough," I said with a smile.

"Owen, thank you, I would be desperate without you, you saved me." Anne looked at me gratefully, and then she took out two shillings and stuffed them into my pocket.

"What are you doing?" I hurriedly refused: "You don't need to be polite with me, I know you need money very much."

"Owen, listen to me." Annie looked at me seriously: "You have helped me so much, I really don't know how to thank you, but I can't rely on your kindness to take advantage of you, my conscience I'm not allowed to do this. I, I'm Andre's wife, all my life, I love him, so I won't fall in love with other men, please make me less guilty when facing you, so please be sure Don't say no."

"No, you misunderstood, I didn't treat you..." I explained anxiously: "I didn't do this for you... or to ask for something, do you understand?"

Annie seemed even more moved, she nodded and said, "I understand, thank you, thank you again, and I'm sorry."

I looked at her with a headache, not knowing how to explain it.

"You really misunderstood. In fact, I... I have someone I like." I said awkwardly.

Annie just laughed, she didn't believe me at all.

"It's true, I... I fell in love with a very noble person." I took off the brooch on my chest and handed it to Annie: "That person gave it to me, people like us can't afford it." This kind of thing."

Annie held the brooch with a look of surprise: "Is this gold?"

"Yes." I nodded, and then joked with her: "I shouldn't accept such valuables... But, I just want money."

Annie shook her head, she looked at me sincerely: "Does she love you?"

Annie thought the person I liked was a woman, and of course everyone thought so.

I hesitated and nodded: "Yes, she loves me...it's a pity that we will never meet again...I did a lot of things wrong...she...she may not love me anymore..."

Anne didn't say anything, she just put her arms around me.

"Don't feel bad for Owen." She said, "I understand. Many people advised me to leave Andre, but I couldn't leave him because I love him and I know he loves me too. He just lost himself. Love is The most inexplicable thing, we are all the same."

We used the money we earned to go to the tavern to drink beer, eat pork sausages, and look forward to the future business. It seems that everything is going in a good direction.