“You shave off that moustache of yours--it ain't an ornament,” she says to me, “and chance it. Don't get attempting the lingo. Keep to the broken English, and put in a shrug or two. You can manage that all right.” I followed her tip. Of course the manager saw through me, but I got in a “Oui, monsieur” now and again, and they, being short handed at the time, could not afford to be strict, I suppose. Anyhow I got took on, and there I stopped for the whole season, and that was the making of me. Well, as I was saying, in she comes to the supper rooms, and toffy enough she looked in her diamonds and furs, and as for haughtiness there wasn't a born Marchioness she couldn't have given points to. She comes straight up to my table and sits down. Her husband was with her, but he didn't seem to have much to say, except to repeat her orders. Of course I looked as if I'd never set eyes on her before in all my life, though all the time she was a-pecking at the mayonnaise and a-sipping at the Giessler, I was thinking of the coffee-shop and of the ninepenny haddick and the pint of cocoa. “Go and fetch my cloak,” she says to him after a while. “I am cold.” And up he gets and goes out. She never moved her head, and spoke as though she was merely giving me some order, and I stands behind her chair, respectful like, and answers according to the same tip. “Ever hear from 'Kipper'?” she says to me. “I have had one or two letters from him, your ladyship,” I answers. “Oh, stow that,” she says. “I am sick of 'your ladyship.' Talk English; I don't hear much of it. How's he getting on?” “Seems to be doing himself well,” I says. “He's started an hotel, and is regular raking it in, he tells me.” “Wish I was behind the bar with him!” says she. “Why, don't it work then?” I asks. “It's just like a funeral with the corpse left out,” says she. “Serves me jolly well right for being a fool!” The Marquis, he comes back with her cloak at that moment, and I says: “Certainement, madame,” and gets clear. I often used to see her there, and when a chance occurred she would talk to me. It seemed to be a relief to her to use her own tongue, but it made me nervous at times for fear someone would hear her. Then one day I got a letter from “Kipper” to say he was over for a holiday and was stopping at Morley's, and asking me to look him up. He had not changed much except to get a bit fatter and more prosperous-looking. Of course, we talked about her ladyship, and I told him what she said. “Rum things, women,” he says; “never know their own minds.” “Oh, they know them all right when they get there,” I says. “How could she tell what being a Marchioness was like till she'd tried it?” “Pity,” he says, musing like. “I reckoned it the very thing she'd tumble to. I only come over to get a sight of 'er, and to satisfy myself as she was getting along all right. Seems I'd better a' stopped away.” “You ain't ever thought of marrying yourself?” I asks.