those content to serve mediocre employers will never know - the satisfaction of

being able to say with some reason that one's efforts, in however modest a way,

comprise a contribution to the course of history.

 

But perhaps one should not be looking back to the past so much. After all, I

still have before me many more years of service I am required to give. And not

only is Mr Farraday a most excellent employer, he is an American gentleman to

whom, surely, one has a special duty to show all that is best about service in

England. It is essential, then,

 

.lto keep one's attention focused on the present; to guard against any

complacency creeping in on account of what one may have achieved in the past.

For it has to be admitted, over these last few months, things have not been all

they might at Darlington Hall. A number of small errors have surfaced of late,

including that incident last April relating to the silver. Most fortunately, it

was not an occasion on which Mr Farraday had guests, but even so, it was a

moment of genuine embarrassment to me.

 

I t had occurred at breakfast one morning, and for his part; Mr Farraday -

either through kindness, or because being an American he failed to recognize the

extent of the shortcoming - did not utter one word of complaint to me throughout

the whole episode. He had, upon seating himself, simply picked up the fork,

examined it for a brief second, touching the prongs with a fingertip, then

turned his attention to the morning headlines. The whole gesture had been

carried out in an absent-minded sort of way, but of course, I had spotted the