This presented a delicate problem, another of the house guests being also

without his valet, raising the question as to which guest should be allocated

the butler as valet and who the footman. My father, appreciating his employer's

position, volunteered immediately to take the General, and thus was obliged to

suffer intimate proximity for four days with the man he detested. Meanwhile, the

General, having no idea of my father's feelings, took full opportunity to relate

anecdotes of his military accomplishments - as of course many military gentlemen

are wont to do to their valets in the privacy of their rooms. Yet so well did my

father hide his feelings, so professionally did he carry out his duties, that on

his departure the General had actually complimented Mr John Silvers on the

excellence of his butler and had left an unusually large tip in appreciation -

which my father without hesitation asked his employer to donate to a charity.

 

I hope you will agree that in these two instances I have cited from his career -

both of which I have had corroborated and believe to be accurate - my father not

only manifests, but comes close to being the personification itself, of what the

Hayes Society terms 'dignity in keeping with his position'. If one considers the

difference between my father at such moments and a figure such as Mr Jack

Neighbours even with the best of his technical flourishes, I believe one may

begin to distinguish what it is that separates a 'great' butler from a merely

competent one. We may now understand better, too, why my father was so fond of

the story of the butler who failed to panic on discovering a tiger under the

dining table; it was because he knew instinctively that somewhere in this story

lay the kernel of what true 'dignity' is. And let me now posit this: 'dignity'