To return to that other matter: Alice has hinted to me that she intends to store a great deal of my own porcelain and pottery away in the butler's pantry. I had hoped that when we got into the new house we should have plenty of space for displaying the platters, plates, bowls, teapots, etc., etc., to which age has added a special charm, and the collection of which has involved the expenditure of much time and money upon my part.
I am convinced, however, that Alice intends to hide all these beautiful old specimens away; the butler's pantry is evidently for this purpose. I have not questioned Alice about it, but (to use Uncle Si's favorite expression) "it's dollars to doughnuts" that Alice is figuring on displaying her sixty-dollar set of new porcelain in the new glass cabinet in the dining-room, while my rare antiques--among them the blue platter, which was sent me from New Orleans, and which belonged originally to the pirate Lafitte--are relegated to the dim mysterious shelves of the butler's pantry, where dust will obscure them and spiders make them their favorite romping grounds. I intend to ask Lawyer Miles what he would do under like circumstances.
There is a sink in the butler's pantry, but it is wholly superfluous. I am told that this adjunct is useful in washing such dishes and glassware as are too precious to be sent to the kitchen. All this sounds very fine, but the practice is to whew the tableware of all kinds into the kitchen, whether there be a sink in the butler's pantry or not. My grandmother (and my mother, too) never suffered a servant to wash the fine porcelain or the cut glass; that responsible task was always reserved for the housewife herself, and the result was that no porcelain was chipped and no cut glass cracked. They sent me an old willow teapot from Biddeford, and it had n't been with us three weeks before our Celtic cook marred its symmetry by chipping off its venerable nozzle.
The only reason why so many charming bits of china have come down to us from the last century is that our grandmothers and our mothers cared for these things and protected them from rough usage. But, bless your soul! do you suppose Alice could be induced to bare her arms and apply herself to the task of washing a stack of antique porcelain or a row of cut-glass tumblers? No, not for the entire wealth of Wedgewood or the combined output of Dresden and of Sèvres!